


I'm more than a shot in the dark

by StrikerEureka



Series: Loved you from the start [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Established Relationship, Implied Mpreg, Knotting, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Masturbation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Meet the Family, Reunions, Self-Lubrication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-25 03:20:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12027006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrikerEureka/pseuds/StrikerEureka
Summary: After Otabek's rut, Yuri travels back to Almaty to spend his heat with him. Afterward, he meets Otabek's mother and sister, and his best friend, Maxim.It almost doesn’t feel real. The stretched, aching bond between them tugs tight and fresh, knocking the breath out of him.Yuri shoves his way through the people in front of them, ignoring their shouts as he elbows past. Otabek meets him with open arms, catching him as Yuri practically leaps against his chest. He knocks his jaw painfully against Otabek’s shoulder, but he ignores it, clinging and pressing in as tightly as he can. He buries his nose behind Otabek’s ear and takes his first deep inhale of his scent in over a month.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Helloooo, my life is calmer now and I was inspired after hitting AnimeFest in Dallas a couple weeks ago to continue. Meeting Kubo and attending panels really helped dig my inspiration out of its grave again. Glad you came back too :*
> 
> I can't think of anything to warn about but if you see something, let me know. Special thanks to Noora, as always.

Even while it’s happening, Yuri knows it’s a dream. He’s had this particular one a few times now. His belly is round but still fairly small, like someone his size would be. It sits low; some vague, half-formed memory of his mother saying she carried him low filters through his thoughts as he curves both of his hands around the swell of it. It’s warm and hard under his hands and he presses in with his fingertips, searching for movement. 

“Is it a boy or a girl?” someone asks him. Sometimes they tell him it’s one or the other, sometimes they say nothing. He never sees them.

“I don’t know,” Yuri murmurs, prodding his fingers around, feeling the tightness of his skin. He smiles down at his belly before he looks up to find Otabek staring at him, his dark eyes wide and serious. Yuri freezes, opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out, the words turning to sawdust in his mouth. Otabek blinks and looks down at his belly. Slowly, he smiles.

Yuri’s eyes open to the darkness of his bedroom, his pulse hammering away in his throat even as the remnants of the dream fade rapidly away. He takes a shuddering breath and holds it until his lungs burn. It shakes just as much when he blows it out and rolls onto his back.

Yuri’s hands tug up his shirt to expose his flat belly. The cut of his muscles are still just as defined as they’ve always been. His athleticism never allowed for much of an awkward baby fat stage, his body immediately giving way to the light definition that a carefully crafted workout routine has given him.

It’s still flat, like it should be. There’s nothing there. There likely never will be. Still, Yuri pinches his eyes shut and presses his fingers in until it hurts. He’s heard that an omega can sense the change of a pregnancy, that they can feel the difference in their body’s hormones or chemistry or _something_ , so Yuri should be able to as well. 

But there’s nothing. 

There’s nothing. He knows there’s nothing, that it’s probably just his pre-heat hormones running wild now that he has an alpha to carry him through it. 

Yuri’s face flushes and he opens his eyes, mortified that his lashes are sticking together in damp clumps. He swipes roughly at them and reaches for his phone, hesitating after he unlocks it. He should call Otabek and tell him about this reoccurring dream. Maybe he should have told him after he had it the first time, but being apart from him the past couple of weeks has been difficult enough without adding Yuri’s irrational fears to the mix.

The screen of his phone dims and he wakes it up again before dragging the back of his hand against his nose. He blinks away the dampness in his eyes and opens up a text.

_I keep dreaming that I’m pregnant._

He sends it before he can think it through and talk himself out of it. Yuri sets his phone against his chest and stares up through the dark to his ceiling, listening as his cat prowls around somewhere near the foot of the bed. He counts his breaths in an attempt to slow his heart rate, and then loses all progress when his phone vibrates against his sternum.

> (3:53am): Is that a possibility or a legitimate concern?

Yuri frowns at his phone. _What’s the difference?_ he asks.

> (3:54am): I don’t know u surprised me I’m sorry  
>  (3:54am): I didn’t know u were like me  
>  (3:55am): Didn’t know for sure I mean.

Yuri blows out a breath through his nose and it feels like he’s deflating. He’d just taken a chance on telling Guang Hong something that could potentially ruin him and he hadn’t thought twice before doing it.

This thing between the two of them, this budding friendship, has been remarkably easy. Guang Hong is nice and he’s open about himself and his relationship with Leo, he’s funny and he listens to Yuri. They’ve spoken with increasing frequency, ever since Guang Hong first messaged him; Yuri talks to him almost as much as he talks to Otabek, now. Somehow he had never seen the two of them being anything more than rivals on the ice, but now that Guang Hong is his friend, he’s so stupidly grateful for it that it’s practically embarrassing.

And now he finally has confirmation that the two of them are the same in biology. 

Yuri has to wipe his hands on his sheets before he can type again.

_You can’t tell anyone._

> (3:56am): Never

Yuri’s heart gives a pathetically hard lurch in his chest as relief floods his entire body.

> (3:56am): Are u pregnant?

Nerves make Yuri’s stomach twist until he feels sick; he has to clench his phone in both hands to keep himself from reaching down to touch his belly again.

Yuri has to type and retype his response several times before he’s even close to satisfied with it. _No. Doctor said I probably can’t be either._

> (4:00am): You weren’t tested???

_Too expensive._

> (4:01am): Sooo… u and Otabek though?? It’s possible?

Yuri can’t stop his hand from pressing against the smooth pane of his stomach. He feels like he’s going to be sick. It isn’t possible. He would have had some indication of it by now. They’d spent the entire summer fucking; there’s no way. There’s just no way.

There isn’t.

His heart starts to pound again.

> (4:03am): Yuri? I’m sorry if I upset u

_I don’t know._

> (4:03am): ?? u don’t know?

Yuri closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them, they’re blurry with moisture. He wipes them again.

_It’s unlikely._

Guang Hong’s response is slow in coming.

> (4:10am) Go see your doctor Yuri.

Yuri locks his phone and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes until spots of color dance against the insides of his lids. He knows that he’s not going to be able to quell the uncomfortable uncertainty rattling around inside of him until he does. But part of him had been hoping for Guang Hong to tell him he was being irrational, that it was impossible and to stop worrying.

His phone vibrates again and he glances at it without responding because it only makes the guilt in his belly grow.

> (4:13am) Does Otabek know? U should tell him.

 

\--

 

Yuri knows the laws and he knows his rights, he knows that he’s of legal age and he can make his own medical decisions. He knows that he is technically the one in charge of his own body, but he also knows that the stigma that he carries, for being an omega, is impossible to shake. Even with doctors who are supposed to have his interests at heart.

The doctor his Grandpa had taken him to in Moscow was better than the one he’d seen when he’d presented, but going to see him again is a set of challenges that he’s not willing to take on. Going back to Moscow means asking his Grandpa for help getting there, and that means explaining why he’s coming, why he needs to see that doctor again.

It means telling his Grandpa that there’s the slightest possibility that he might be pregnant.

The mere idea of it makes him want to bang his head against the wall or like he might melt at the embarrassment of it. His Grandpa has given him everything in life, sacrificed for him, and been wildly accommodating of Otabek’s sudden and permanent presence. He’s accepted their relationship because Otabek is good to him and makes him happy.

But this is too much to ask of him. He can’t say those words to his Grandpa and see the look on his face, even though Yuri knows his Grandpa would help him, no matter the situation.

He can’t.

He also knows that to go alone to a new doctor as an unmated omega seeking a pregnancy test would be detrimental to his reputation. He can’t do that either.

And, if he’s being incredibly honest with himself, he’s afraid. 

Every single moment he’s awake is spent fighting the urge to tell Otabek. He wants to just as much as he doesn’t. It’s all so unlikely and improbable but, as Guang Hong has forced him to realize, not entirely impossible. 

Maybe if it wasn’t days before Otabek’s rut, maybe if it wasn’t less than a week before Yuri is scheduled to fly out to spend his heat with Otabek, maybe if he wasn’t so afraid of what Otabek’s reaction will be. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

It’s this list of excuses that has him asking Viktor to go with him.

The bewildered looks on both his and Katsuki’s faces makes it almost worth it to feel like he’s lying to Otabek. Viktor agrees, after some prodding from Katsuki to help Yuri out, but that stupid smile he wears almost constantly dims and fades. The silence he presents Yuri with, when he comes to pick him up the next morning, is somehow worse than the lecture he’d expected.

It’s still early enough that the morning light is watery and thin, and Yuri finds himself stifling a yawn every couple of minutes. Viktor is a dark, little rain cloud behind the wheel, barely sparing Yuri a glance aside from making sure he’d buckled his seatbelt when he’d climbed in. 

The nervous knot in his belly makes Yuri want to talk or move around, shake his leg, or pick at the tears in the knees of his jeans. He looks sideways at Viktor as he makes a turn, listening as the blinker clicks off again.

Yuri sighs, unable to take the cold shoulder thing they have going on.

“No one is going to believe you’re my alpha if you won’t even look at me,” he finally snaps. Viktor doesn’t bat an eye at him, staying focused on the road. “Why are you pissed at me? Because you had to get up early? Because you had to drive me?”

Viktor glances at him for a moment and his eyes are dark, his mouth pulled tight in a frown.

“I thought you two would be more careful,” he says coolly, returning his gaze to the road.

Yuri bristles. “My doctor said it’s nearly impossible for me to get pregnant.”

“Then why are we doing this?” Viktor asks, slowing to a stop at a light; the gps on his phone announces that they’re two minutes away. “Why isn’t Otabek here?”

Yuri glowers, staring out the windshield even as Viktor continues to bore holes in the side of his head with his gaze. 

“The light’s green,” Yuri tells him a moment later. 

Viktor drives the final two minutes in silence, remaining quiet even as he pulls the key from the ignition and unbuckles his seatbelt. He doesn’t move to get out of the car, however, and neither does Yuri. 

“Why haven’t you told Otabek?” Viktor finally asks, voice quiet, still looking out the window and not at Yuri. They have ten minutes before they need to be inside to make his appointment.

“Because I don’t want to worry him over nothing.”

“He’s going to be angry when you tell him about this.”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to tell him because there won’t be anything to say. I’m not pregnant.” He wishes he believed the certainty that he puts behind those words.

Viktor lets out a slow breath and turns his head to look at him. Yuri resolutely doesn’t look back.

“If you’re so sure of that then why are we here?”

Yuri swallows to wet his suddenly dry throat. He doesn’t know how to explain to Viktor the fear growing inside of his chest, the anxiety that won’t be put to rest until he knows for _certain_ that there’s nothing for him to worry Otabek about. He’s afraid but he can’t bring himself to say those words to Viktor. He can’t.

Instead, he finds himself swiping at his eyes again and clearing his throat. What comes out when he opens his mouth isn’t a lie. “We’re here because I need your help.”

Viktor’s sigh is audible but he doesn’t protest or complain further as he opens his door and steps out into the chilly morning air. Yuri follows without a word.

 

\--

 

He sits in the hard, plastic chair in the waiting room after he signs himself in. Viktor sits beside him, reading something on his phone. He’s still not speaking to Yuri but he puts his other hand on the back of Yuri’s chair and crosses his leg toward him. It’s subtle alpha-like behavior and just convincing enough to give off the vibe that they’re together, even if the mere thought of it makes Yuri want to gag.

He leans forward with his elbows on his thighs and twists his fingers together, using the momentary silence of the otherwise empty waiting room to wrack his brain for everything his last doctor had told him. It feels like another lifetime, so far away and improbable, and tinged with an inherent sadness that Yuri can’t quite shake.

His womb appears developed but the birth canal is not. Something about his hips being too narrow for labor (a thought that makes him cringe inwardly). Unlikely but impossible to rule out without further testing. Invasive, expensive, pointless. 

Yuri can’t be pregnant. He sits up and rakes his hands through his hair, blowing out a breath that puffs up his cheeks. 

Viktor looks up from his phone, studying him carefully. “All right?” he asks.

Yuri nods without glancing at him. His posture feels tense and awkward, like it’s suddenly not him controlling his movements anymore. He crosses his ankles and starts shaking one of his feet. Viktor’s fingertips press against the back of his neck in what is likely meant to be a soothing touch that Yuri bristles under. He hasn’t decided if he likes it or not before a door opens and a woman with a clipboard calls him back. 

Under pain of death he wouldn’t admit that he feels better knowing that Viktor is following right behind him.

Yuri sits rigidly on the exam table while Viktor waits quietly in the corner, still scrolling through his phone. There’s a little furrow between his brows and it makes Yuri want to kick him in the thigh. How Viktor can act so detached and then have the nerve to look stressed out is beyond Yuri.

He’s just about judged the distance between Viktor’s leg and his foot when the door opens. An older woman with short gray hair enters, glancing though a chart in her hands. Viktor locks his phone and looks attentive. Again, Yuri nearly kicks him. 

She introduces herself as she takes Yuri’s vitals. He knows her name and he hears it again, when she says it, but the pounding of his heart and the rush of blood past his ears seems to fry his short term memory. He couldn’t dredge up her name right now if someone paid him.

She asks him what he assumes are the usual round of questions.

When was the last time he was sexually active? “Five weeks ago.”

Has he felt any different? “No.”

Was he tested for fertility? “No.”

Yuri submits his arm for her to draw his blood and looks away, his pulse jumping in his throat. He’s not afraid—he’s _not_ —he just doesn’t like to watch it happen. It’s weird, it’s not normal, he doesn’t want to see his blood being syphoned out through a needle.

He doesn’t even realize that he’s got his eyes clenched shut until he feels Viktor take hold of his free hand and they crack open again. Viktor’s fingers feel overly warm around his own, but maybe his hands are just cold. His entire body feels like ice. He won’t admit to letting Viktor squeeze his fingers or squeezing them back when he feels the needle pinch his skin.

His scent is strong, likely he’s trying to soothe Yuri the way he would Katsuki, but it smells off. It’s too strong or too sweet, it makes his nose itch like he needs to sneeze. Yuri starts to breathe out of his mouth, because, despite how different it is from Otabek’s scent, and how foreign it feels, it still feels like a balm on his frazzled nerves. He doesn’t like it.

The guilt in his belly only intensifies as the voice that tells him that this should be Otabek gets louder and louder with every passing moment.

“We’ll call you with the results tomorrow,” she says, pulling the band around his arm loose. She turns away and Yuri drops Viktor’s hand. When he looks back at her, she presses a bandage over the small spot of blood in his elbow and gives him a brief smile.

“Tomorrow?” he asks, throat feeling oddly dry. “I have to wait?”

“Results typically take a day or two, but we’re going to rush it for you.”

Yuri wants to ask why but he has a feeling it’s something that Viktor has done. Or maybe it’s just because of Viktor himself. He has to fight the urge to turn and look at him.

“We do offer fertility testing, Mr. Plisetsky,” she continues, snapping off her gloves and tossing them in the bin in the corner. “If you’re concerned about getting pregnant, or actively trying, I would suggest it.” She looks at him with her thin eyebrows arched. “To avoid future concerns.”

Yuri wants to shrink under that gaze, but he forces himself to meet it. He shakes his head. “No, thank you.”

“Yuri,” Viktor’s voice makes him jump. He hasn’t heard him speak since they were in the waiting room. Yuri’s head snaps his direction, already frowning. “I think you should do this.”

For a moment, anything that Yuri wants to say is lost. He wants to tell Viktor to mind his own fucking business, that this has nothing to do with him, that he isn’t in charge of Yuri’s body, and he certainly isn’t Otabek. He bites his tongue, however. Anyone who sees the two of them needs to be under the impression that he and Viktor are here together. That _they’re_ together.

He takes a slow breath and holds Viktor’s eyes; he shakes his head once. Viktor looks away, his mouth tightening into a thin line, but he says nothing further.

The doctor is writing in Yuri’s chart, pointedly not paying attention to the two of them, even though it’s impossible that she’s missed the exchange. 

“No, thank you,” Yuri repeats.

She looks up and nods politely, closing his file. “We’ll be in touch tomorrow, Mr. Plisetsky.”

Yuri slides off the table without a word. Viktor follows at his back.

 

\--

 

The stony silence persists once they’re in the car. Viktor waits until they’ve left the parking lot before he speaks again, not looking at Yuri but focusing his attention on the road.

“You’d rather do this again, than have a definitive answer?” he asks, voice low and a little bit angry. It makes Yuri angry at him in turn.

“I couldn’t afford it, even if I wanted it,” he snipes back, lifting his hips to tug his phone out of his back pocket; he needs a distraction.

He can practically hear Viktor’s eye roll. “I would have paid for it.”

“No.”

“Yuri—“

“ _No_ , fuck you. Never.” He unlocks his phone and stares blankly at it. Viktor sighs. “Shut up, already. Just let it go.”

Viktor slows at a light and looks at him; Yuri keeps his eyes on his phone, sliding his thumb across the screen to flip through his different apps without opening any of them. A text from Otabek comes in but he ignores it for now; he can’t talk to Otabek when he’s feeling this raw or else a confession will come pouring out of him.

“Yuri,” Viktor says. 

“Fuck. Off.”

“Let me help you.”

“No!” Yuri shouts, slamming his hand against the center console. It makes Viktor jump a little, his eyes roving over Yuri for a moment before he turns back to the wheel, taking an audible breath and letting it out slowly, like he’s trying not to yell in turn. 

The light changes and Viktor accelerates, but quickly pulls into the closest parking lot. Yuri groans, tipping his head back against the seat. He doesn’t know what Viktor is about to say but he knows, without a doubt, that he doesn’t want to have this conversation. He locks his phone and smacks it against his thigh a few times as Viktor puts the car in park.

“Whatever you’re gonna say, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Tough,” Viktor says, turning to look at him. He flicks his hair back only to have it immediately fall back into his eyes. “Having this test done would give you an answer. You need to know, Yuri.”

Yuri blows out a breath, still looking straight out the windshield and not at Viktor. “I don’t want to know.”

“ _Why_? When it would save you so much—“

“Because then I’d _know_!” he shouts, finally turning to Viktor. He’s seething inside, his heart racing and his eyes burning, his throat tight. He feels awful and sick and he just wants to call Otabek and hear his voice. He wants to be anywhere but here with Viktor looking at him like that. Like he finally gets it. 

Like he pities him.

Yuri swallows against the dryness in his throat. “If they tell me never…” he starts but, to his utter horror, finds himself unable to finish the thought. His eyelashes are damp when he turns back in his seat to face forward. “Just take me home.”

There’s a long moment where Viktor just looks at him and Yuri is afraid that he’s going to do something terrible like reach out and touch him or try to comfort him or something. But he doesn’t. He turns back, letting out a quiet, shaky-sounding breath through his nose and puts the car in gear again.

Yuri tugs his hoodie sleeve down over his fingers and turns to look out his window. He brings his fist up to rub his knuckles against his eyes; the fabric comes away damp. He sniffs, only when it’s either that or let snot run out of his nose. 

Viktor says nothing so Yuri says nothing. 

He just wants to be back in Almaty, in the safety of Otabek’s apartment. He just wants to ease the ache in his chest and the whirlwind of hormones his body is kicking up. He pinches his eyes shut and focuses on his breathing. 

When they get back to Lilia’s, Yuri gets out without a word. He doesn’t look back, but he knows that Viktor waits until he’s inside before he drives off.

 

\--

 

Despite the overwhelming guilt, the feeling that he’s somehow lied to Otabek by not including him in his doctor visit, Yuri gets on with his week.

Otabek’s rut is slated to begin in the next two days, and last approximately three. And then Yuri will arrive the day before his heat, and then… 

Then.

Yuri tries not to blush at the thought of it. He’s never been with anyone during his heat. He’s always been locked away by himself, terrified of what he might do and who he might be desperate enough to do it with otherwise. The only other person who has seen him in heat is Viktor and that was a terrible accident. If Yuri hadn’t gone into heat early, if Viktor hadn’t seen, if Viktor hadn’t helped instead of hurt… everything would be different. 

Yuri slides his thumb across the screen of his phone to answer when Otabek’s name lights it up. His contact picture is of Otabek asleep on the couch at their apartment with both of their cats on his lap; it never fails to make Yuri smile.

“Hello, Hero.”

Otabek groans and Yuri grins to himself, rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “If I ever wanted anything to die, it’d be that nickname.”

Yuri closes his eyes, feeling blissful at the low, easy tenor of Otabek’s voice. It soothes something inside of him, something going increasingly frazzled and wild as the days crawl closer to his heat. He almost wishes Otabek would say something to him and inflict it with his alpha influence. Yuri’s cock gives a meaningful twitch at the idea and he clenches his legs, eyes opening again to the overhead light.

“I like it,” he forces himself to say, his voice coming out hoarse.

Otabek hums. “How are you feeling?” he asks instead of mentioning how Yuri must sound to him.

Yuri shrugs, turning his head to the side, listening to the static shock of his hair as it lifts off the blanket. “About the same. Restless. Tired.” _Missing you so much I want to scream._

“Are you off your suppressants?”

“Yeah,” Yuri says, stretching out until his back pops and the muscles in his biceps ache. “I stopped taking them yesterday.” It’s going to make travelling alone more of a risk, simply because anyone who notices him will be able to smell his omega pheromones, but it’s better this way. It’s easier to go through a heat without the suppressants flooding his body with confusing hormones. It’ll be better with Otabek, too. He shivers and turns onto his side again, squeezing his legs together as his cock stiffens a little at the thought.

Otabek exhales through his nose. They’re quiet for a moment, just listening to each other breathe.

“I wish I could scent you, right now,” Otabek rumbles, sending goosebumps prickling up over Yuri’s skin.

“Me too.”

“I bet you smell so good.”

“Beka,” Yuri whispers. “Don’t.” His hole is a little slick and his cock is fattening up where it’s pressed between his thighs, but he doesn’t want to do this now. He wants to be with Otabek. He wants Otabek to touch him and fuck him and make him come. He doesn’t want to do it himself.

Otabek clears his throat. “Sorry. I miss you.”

Yuri keeps his eyes pinched shut. “Me too. I miss you so much. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“It’s only five days, Yura. I’ll see you soon.”

He shakes his head against the bed. “That’s not what I mean. I don’t want to be apart anymore.”

Otabek’s silence is longer this time; Yuri listens to him breathe. He works his hand down between his legs and squeezes his cock, almost whimpering with how good it feels. He squeezes harder, until it hurts, and his building erection starts to fade. 

“We’ll talk about it after your heat,” Otabek finally says.

“Talk about what?”

“Where we want to live. I don’t want to leave Almaty, yet, but I don’t want to be apart from you, either. I don’t know what to do, and I can’t think like this.” He takes a ragged breath. “My rut is—my head feels like it’s too full. I just want you here with me.”

Yuri rubs his knuckles against his eye until it sparks pain across his forehead. “Me too. I can’t wait—“ he cuts himself off abruptly, aware of how filthy it would sound to admit that he’s actually looking forward to this heat. He bites his lip and squeezes his thighs again.

“I know, Yura,” Otabek murmurs. “Soon.”

“I sound disgusting,” he mutters, scratching at the blanket with his fingernail. 

“Nothing about you is disgusting.” Yuri smiles to himself. A quiet meow filters through the speaker. “Flura says she misses you too.”

Yuri snorts a breath out his nose. “I miss her too. Kiss her for me.”

He can hear Otabek scoop the cat up and the muffled sounds of him kissing the top of her head. He closes his eyes again and bites down on a smile.

“Done.”

Flura’s meow is disgruntled.

As the call winds down, Yuri sits up on the side of his bed, folding his legs and picking at one of the uglier scabs on his foot. He’s anxious and he doesn’t want to let Otabek go, even though he knows that Otabek needs to prepare for the onset of his rut. Not for the first time, Yuri wishes that he was going to be there for it.

 _Next time_ , Otabek keeps telling him, too concerned with how his first rut on regulators will be. _Next time_ Yuri can spend it with him. _Next time_ they won’t have this distance. Maybe next time they won’t have to negotiate it at all. Maybe next time… 

He shakes his head and forces himself not to go down that road.

“Can I call you, if I’m—if I don’t totally lose it? I’m sure I’ll want to see you.” Yuri can practically see the flush on Otabek’s face. He smothers a grin with his palm.

“I hope you do.”

“Okay,” Otabek rasps. “I should go. I have to feed the cat and… get some other things ready.”

Without thinking about it, Yuri presses a hand against his belly, curling his fingers in the washed-soft material of his shirt. “Okay,” he agrees. When he looks down and sees his fingers spread out over the flat of his stomach, he pulls his hand away and sits on it.

“I love you, Yurochka,” Otabek tells him, voice quiet and sure, rumbling just right into the pit of Yuri’s belly.

“Love you. Call me.”

There’s a smile in Otabek’s voice when he agrees. Yuri hangs up and sets his phone aside. He knows it’s his pre-heat hormones, he knows it’s just his body getting ready to go fucking insane on him, but he can’t help it now anymore than he could help it the first time it happened. He lies back on his bed and pulls his shirt up to expose his stomach. He touches the dips of muscle and the thin, blonde hairs leading downward from his navel, and he feels his belly. He imagines it big and round, and he wants it. He wants it so fucking badly that it makes his eyes burn.

But it isn’t him, it isn’t his thoughts. He doesn’t have any control over this part of himself and he hates it, even as he runs his hands over his flat stomach and aches for more. It makes his hole slick and his cock throb, and he misses Otabek so badly that he has to bite his lip to hold in a sob.

Soon, he reminds himself. Days. Days and then he’ll be with Otabek again, and he can indulge this primal, instinctive part of himself that only serves to scare him on his own.

“Beka,” he whispers, dipping his fingers under the waist of his boxers and wrapping around his cock. He brings himself to orgasm quickly, spilling over his fist after only a few pumps, and draws his shaking hand out of his underwear to rest on his stomach.

“Five days,” he tells himself, breathlessly. “I got this.”

 

\--

 

Yuri sleeps with his laptop open on the floor, with the screen dimmed all the way to black. On the second night of Otabek’s rut, a skype call wakes him from a restless sleep. He’s bleary eyed as he fumbles to get his computer up onto the bed without falling out onto the floor. The light hurts his eyes and he feels dizzy with how fast he’s moving, but it’s worth it when he sees Otabek sag with relief on the other side of the screen.

“ _Yura_ ,” he gasps. 

“Hold on, let me get my headphones in,” he rasps, voice gravelly with sleep. He fumbles again for his headphones, managing to plug them in on the third try. “Okay, I’m here, Beka.” His heart is already racing before he even focuses on what he’s seeing.

His laptop is placed beside his television on the low dresser at the foot of his bed. Otabek is naked, bent over with his hands on either side of the laptop, panting, his hair matted to his head with sweat. 

“Yuri, fuck,” he rasps, voice gone hoarse. “I need you here.”

The words make Yuri shake. “I’m here, Beka,” he practically croons. Everything in him is dying to help Otabek, to take this ache away for him. He’s an omega and this is his alpha; it’s practically his job.

Otabek shakes his head and looks up at the screen. “Oh fuck,” he whispers.

A shudder runs through Yuri. Just looking at him had done that. “I’m here, Beka,” he repeats. “Right here.”

“Yuri.”

“What can I do? What do you need?” As much as Yuri wants to help, as much as his entire body is practically vibrating with the need to ease Otabek through his rut, he doesn’t know how to offer comfort when he’s so far away. “Tell me.”

“Keep talking,” Otabek rasps, dropping his head again but it snaps back up a moment later, like he realized that he lost sight of Yuri. “Your voice helps.”

Yuri shifts his laptop back and sits up against the wall. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

Otabek’s groan turns into a whine as he turns to wipe his sweaty face off on his bicep. “Everything hurts. I feel—I’m lucid, it’s not like last time, but it’s almost worse. I can’t just check out and let it happen. I’m here and I’m _alone_ and I think if I touch myself again, my dick is going to bleed.”

“You need to take care of yourself. If you’re lucid there’s no excuse. You have lube, right?” Yuri doesn’t know where that came from, but the _need_ to help Otabek is overwhelming, right now.

Otabek rocks forward and back, shaking his head. “I don’t need lube, I need _you_.” Yuri closes his eyes tightly at the words. Otabek has never left him feeling uncertain, there has never been a question about Otabek’s feelings toward him, but hearing him say it now, so candidly, is both incredible and so undeniably sad in how clearly painful this situation is for Otabek. Yuri just wants to make it better and he doesn’t know how.

“Let me help you get off,” he says, keeping his voice down, but also trying to soothe with it. Otabek blinks at him, a drop of sweat rolling down from his hairline into his eyebrow while Yuri watches. 

“Okay,” Otabek rasps. “Okay.” He sits back on the bed but leaves the laptop where it is. Yuri can see how hard he is already, his cock stiff and his knot dark with blood and already swelling up again. Otabek wraps his hand around it and strokes himself a couple of times before tearing his hand away with a groan. 

“Get the lube.”

Otabek shakes his head. “I’m so wet, Yuri, I don’t need it.”

Yuri tries to ignore what those words do to him. He swallows to wet his throat and digs his fingers into his sheets to keep from reaching for his own cock.

“Humor me, okay?”

Otabek turns with a groan and crawls up the bed for it. The bottle is sitting on his nightstand, probably untouched since this began yesterday. Yuri nearly winces at the thought of the chaffing. Otabek comes back to the foot of the bed and resumes his position. He doesn’t need to be told to upend it over his cock, he doesn’t need to be told to stroke himself. He moves restlessly under his own touch, keeping his eyes on the screen as Yuri watches him with rapt attention.

Before Yuri can open his mouth and tell him how amazing he looks, how good he’s doing, anything, Otabek tips his head back and whines low in his throat.

“I don’t like this,” he gasps, his fist still moving quickly over his cock. Yuri’s brow furrows, but before he can ask, Otabek goes on. “I don’t feel like me. It’s all… _off_. This doesn’t feel right.” He cuts off with a strangled groan and then he’s hunching over himself, jerking hard as his entire body is wracked with shudders.

Yuri feels like his mouth is full of sand. He doesn’t know what to say or how to bring Otabek any sort of comfort. He doesn’t know what will make him feel better, if anything would. Yuri jams a hand down his underwear and digs the heel of his hand into the base of his aching dick, trying to force all of his focus onto Otabek.

“Beka,” he rasps, “you’re doing so good.” Otabek lets out a sharp, desperate sound. “You _are_. Look how hard you are for me.” He swallows and glances toward his locked bedroom door. Yuri would absolutely die if Lilia heard him. He might die anyway; his cheeks are on fire. 

“’m coming,” Otabek gasps, back arching, legs sliding along his blankets as his entire body shakes and spasms. He’s slick and wet everywhere, from sweat and lube, shining like some obscene-looking god on Yuri’s computer screen as he fists his knot, trying to tip himself over the edge.

“Beka,” Yuri tries, clearing his throat. “Beka, listen. Make a ring with your fingers and force them over your knot.” He squeezes his own cock, fighting a wince at the way his hole twitches and leaks in his underwear. “Tighten up at the bottom; pretend it’s me. Let me feel it. Let me have it.”

Otabek follows his orders, using both hands to squeeze his knot, forcing them down over it and then closing tight at the base. His voice breaks on a cry and he starts to come, hard. Come spurts from the head of his dick, over his chest and stomach, dripping down his thighs. He comes forever, over and over, body wracked with it until he falls back on the bed, spine arched and one messy fist shoved against his mouth.

Yuri comes watching him, whimpering into his own hand, trying to muffle himself, but Otabek seems to hear it. His body shakes and he redoubles his effort to jerk himself through it, a fresh wave of come spurting over his belly to roll down his sides.

“Yuri,” he groans, voice as rough as sandpaper. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Yuri pants, “you look so good. Fuck, just look at you.”

Otabek’s knees tip open further, giving Yuri an unobstructed view of him. The drawn-up curve of his balls, his wet pubic hair, the tight muscles in the backs of his thighs. The way that he shakes as he finally stops coming. Yuri almost reaches out to touch the screen, but he manages to refrain.

He cleans himself up while Otabek lies there panting, fingers prodding and squeezing gently at his knot as he shakes every so often from the aftershocks. Yuri needs a shower. A very cold shower.

“Beka?” he asks after he’s balled up his used tissues in his hand. “You okay?”

Eventually Otabek lets go of himself and pushes back up into a sitting position. He looks absolutely wrecked, flushed and wet everywhere. He drags a hand through his hair before realizing how disgusting it is. He looks down at it with a groan and Yuri can’t help the small laugh that escapes him.

“You’re a disaster.”

“I am,” Otabek agrees. “But I feel better. Like my head’s more clear, now.” He almost touches his hand to his face but he stops himself in time and wipes his cheek against his shoulder instead. “I wish I could smell you. I feel like it’s all that I want, right now. Your scent would ground me.”

Yuri has to clench his teeth to stop from smiling. “You think?”

“It’s instinctive; I _know_.”

Yuri looks down at where his hands are fisted in his sheets. “Shut up,” he mutters.

Otabek laughs quietly. “The things you said to me, just now, and this makes you shy.”

“Shut up,” Yuri says, louder, heart pounding as he sits upright to look at the screen again. “It helped.”

“It did. Of course you did. I just… miss you,” Otabek says with a sigh. “I’ll be glad when you’re here, again. I still don’t feel very in control, but you’re making it better, even from there.”

“Well… good.” Yuri doesn’t quite know what to say. He wants to be there with Otabek; it’s obvious that he needs him, it’s obvious that Yuri _helps_ him. He’s completely different from the desperate Otabek that had called him a little while ago. Yuri’s face heats up a bit.

Otabek sighs. “I should go, clean up while I’m still relaxed. It’ll start up again, soon.”

Yuri nods, fingers still twisting in his sheets. “You can call me again. I don’t mind.”

Otabek smiles at him and it lights Yuri up inside. “I know. But I’m going to try to let you sleep. You need to rest.”

“I’m fine,” Yuri tells him, but the truth is there. Yuri’s body is about to work overtime and flood him with hormones that he’ll barely be able to cope with. He should sleep.

“Soon,” Otabek tells him. 

Yuri nods. “Love you, Beka.”

“Love you, Yuri.”

The call ends and Yuri removes his headphones, dimming his computer screen again and returning it to the floor. No matter how tired he might be, he won’t miss a call from Otabek; if he needs him, Yuri will be there.

He has to step over his cat, stretched out in the hallway, to clean himself up in the bathroom. He changes into new boxers and washes his hands, avoiding his own gaze in the mirror, and then makes his way back to bed. 

There’s a restless feeling under his skin, making him itchy and uncomfortable, his hormones going into overdrive after hearing Otabek in his rut. He’s too hot to cover himself up and his sheets prickle against the hair on his legs. His toes hurt and the tightness in his belly feels ominous. Yuri wants to spread his hands over it and push and he doesn’t know why. 

Rolling onto his side, he snatches his phone up. Some rather slow math tells him that it’s still only the afternoon in California. Guang Hong could be practicing or just be out taking aesthetic, instagram-worthy pictures with his boyfriend. Yuri texts him anyway.

_Leo doesn’t have a rut or anything does he?_

Thankfully, the reply comes quickly, as it usually does.

> (1:20am): No? He’s a beta. Why??

Yuri feels stupid now that he’s said anything because he knows this. He’s done his research on all of his rivals; he knows what they are. He knew what Leo was. He smacks his phone against his forehead a couple of times until he can think of how to respond.

_Otabek’s in rut. I don’t know how to help because I’m not there. I feel useless._

> (1:25am): Ahhh yea well I mean… Leo responds to my heat but it’s not like it would be if he was an alpha.

_Have you ever been with an alpha in rut? Or at all?_

> (1:26am): no

The response is almost shy and Yuri feels bad for even asking him about it. He knows things are even stricter in China, for people like them. He knows that Guang Hong likely wouldn’t be as comfortable speaking about it as Yuri has learned to be with certain people.

_Sorry. That was rude._

> (1:28am): no no it’s ok. I’ve just never talked about it much. Moving to California helped but I’m getting there.  
>  (1:30am): I couldn’t ask for better than Leo  
>  (1:31am): it’s rough for him bc he can’t… help me the way an alpha could. But I don’t want anyone else.

Yuri blows out a breath and sets his phone down on his chest, closing his eyes. He doesn’t know why what Guang Hong said makes his heart rate start to slow, but it does. His phone vibrates, once and then again.

> (1:33am): I love him  
>  (1:33am): u will help Otabek as much as u can. It’ll be enough

Yuri closes his eyes, tapping his phone against his mouth for a moment. Not for the first time, he’s grateful that Guang Hong reached out to him. Stupidly grateful. He doesn’t know how he got this far along without someone to talk to about this.

_Thanks Ji._

> (1:35am): ♡

 

\--

 

The hormones are the worst part. The absolute worst. Yuri’s body feels like someone is turning the heat up slowly on the inside. He doesn’t think that he smells like an omega about to go into heat, but he knows that his natural scent is stronger than it ever is. 

People look at him. Not many, but every so often, someone he passes by on his walk through the airport will crane their head around to look at him. He knows he’s being scented, tasted, and it makes his skin crawl. He wants to yell at them all to breathe out of their fucking mouths or something because this scent is for Otabek alone.

He tucks his arms in against his chest, the sleeves of his hoodie pulled tightly over his fingers, and keeps his head down. 

Otabek stands apart from the crowd of people jostling to get to their bag carousels. He’s got on black jeans and a long sleeved gray shirt with the bracelet Yuri had given him last summer still tied in place around his wrist. He looks like a dream, standing there, waiting for Yuri.

It almost doesn’t feel real. The stretched, aching bond between them tugs tight and fresh, knocking the breath out of him.

Yuri shoves his way through the people in front of them, ignoring their angry remarks as he elbows past. Otabek meets him with open arms, catching him as Yuri practically leaps against his chest. He knocks his jaw painfully against Otabek’s shoulder, but he ignores it, clinging and pressing in as tightly as he can. He buries his nose behind Otabek’s ear and takes his first deep inhale of his scent in over a month.

The overwhelming satisfaction of it makes his eyes burn.

Otabek holds him, arms strong and tight, but the fatigue in his voice is obvious, even when he only whispers Yuri’s name into his hair. 

Yuri forces himself to pull back enough to look him in the eye, both hands coming up to frame that hard jaw. Otabek’s dark eyes are tired, practically bruised underneath with lack of sleep. His rut had just ended early this morning, and he looks dead on his feet. And he’s still here to meet Yuri.

“I missed you,” Otabek tells him.

Yuri pulls him into a kiss that is both lighter and quicker than he wants, but it’s better than nothing. He nudges his nose against Otabek’s cheek and feels him smile as Yuri tucks his face into his neck again.

“Take me home.”

Otabek nods, seeking out his hand.

 

\--

 

Yuri is so tired by the time he drags himself out of Otabek’s shower, that all he wants is a nap. Flura dances around his feet, meowing and licking at his leg when he comes to stand beside the bed, still toweling off his hair. Otabek watches him with a tired smile lingering on his lips. He pulls back his mismatched blankets and Yuri drops the wet towel to the floor and climbs over Otabek’s legs to his spot, sighing as he squirms to get comfortable. 

It feels like he never left. 

Otabek’s arm is heavy around his back, fingers brushing at the skin just above his shirt collar. The touch is familiar and sweet and Yuri has missed this so, so much.

“Kiss me,” he murmurs.

Otabek does, ducking his head to find Yuri’s mouth with his own. The slow, easy glide of their tongues sparks something electric in Yuri’s belly, making his toes curl. He fists his hand in Otabek’s shirt to keep him close, even though Otabek isn’t making any move to pull away.

He presses light, fluttering kisses over Yuri’s nose and cheek until Yuri has to huff a laugh and hide his face half in the pillow. Otabek smooths his hair down, tracing gentle fingers over his ear. 

“Can we talk about where we’re gonna live, now?” Yuri asks, resettling his head on the pillow.

Otabek’s hand stalls. “Let’s wait until after your heat.”

“Why?” 

“Clear heads.”

Yuri sighs. “I feel pretty clear.”

Otabek ducks his head, slowly, brushing aside Yuri’s hair and just barely grazing his skin with the tip of his nose. Yuri closes his eyes with a shudder, his entire body breaking out in goosebumps as Otabek breathes him in.

“What do I smell like?” Yuri asks, tightening his fingers in Otabek’s shirt when he pulls back to look Yuri in the eye.

“Like heaven.”

Yuri pushes at his face until Otabek flops over onto his back, his laughter muffled under Yuri’s palm.

“That’s the best you can do?”

“I’m tired, give me a break,” Otabek pleads, still grinning at him. He wraps his arms around Yuri and tugs him down, situating him against his side, half on his chest, and pins him there. Yuri gives up with a huff, the exhale blowing his hair out of his face.

“Seriously, though,” Yuri says, folding his arms on top of Otabek’s chest and setting his chin on his hands. “No one’s ever smelled me in heat before.” The words falter when Yuri realizes they’re not entirely true; he fixes his gaze on Otabek’s chin to avoid his eyes.

Fingers tuck his hair behind his ear again and knuckles brush against his jaw. “You smell sweet,” Otabek tells him. “It’s hard to explain. It’s you but more. Stronger and better.”

Yuri’s mouth twists to the side at the description. Otabek’s thumb presses against the wrinkle at the bridge of his nose.

“Sweet,” Yuri mutters.

“I could go with ‘heaven’ again.”

Yuri huffs and lays his head down, ear to Otabek’s chest. This time tomorrow he won’t be able to think straight. He won’t be able to appreciate this closeness, the calm that Otabek gives him. He’ll be out of his mind, crying and panting, an ugly mess tearing up Otabek’s sheets. Yuri closes his eyes and tries not to think about it, focusing only on the steady thump of Otabek’s heartbeat thudding in his chest.

There’s a tension in how Otabek holds himself, almost undetectable, but Yuri can feel it, plucking at their bond, filtering anxiety into his scent. 

“Just ask,” Yuri grumbles. 

Otabek holds himself still a moment longer, like he’s debating whether or not he wants to, and then he blows out a breath and tucks his hands into Yuri’s hair. 

“Was it Nikiforov?” 

Yuri nods. “He found me in a bathroom at the rink when I went into heat early. He wouldn’t know otherwise. He _shouldn’t_ know. I fucked up.” Yuri can’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. 

Otabek scratches his blunt nails against Yuri’s scalp. “And he helped you.” The way that Otabek says it isn’t a question.

Yuri nods again. “Yeah. If anyone else had found me—“ Yuri cuts himself off, pressing his knuckles against Otabek’s chest. He knows what could have happened to him. If it was anyone but Viktor, anyone without restraint like him… the things Yuri had said. He pinches his eyes shut.

“I’m glad he found you,” Otabek says, his voice a soothing rumble to match the calming pulse in his scent. 

Yuri presses his cheek hard to Otabek’s chest and seeks out his heartbeat once more. “Yeah.”

Otabek’s fingers card through his hair, combing the strands back as he works out the knots. Yuri heaves a sigh and it feels like letting go of something. His head is too muddled to properly work out what, but he relishes the feeling as his eyes flutter shut.

“My friends want to meet you,” Otabek tells him quietly.

Yuri hums. “Okay.” Something in his chest warms at the thought of Otabek introducing him to the people that he cares about, but it’s muffled and quiet, lost to the gentle pull at his hair. Everything else just fades away.

 

\--

 

Yuri never remembers much about his heats. He’s always spent them alone, crying into his pillow and fucking himself. First on his fingers, then something he’d bought himself off the internet. He’d been mortified at first, even looking at heat aids, _something for the lonely omega_ the site had advertised. Yuri had wanted to click out of it on the grounds that he wasn’t lonely, he was fifteen years old, at the time, and he needed _something_ to get him through it with his sanity intact. 

And now… now he has Otabek.

Yuri’s head is a fuzzy mess, barely able to process anything beyond the tightening demand in his belly for _more, more, more_. He can feel Otabek, his heavy breaths against his face and his neck, making his skin prick and crawl with goosebumps and his nipples pebble until they hurt. Everything hurts but it doesn’t feel bad, necessarily. It feels like too much and too good.

His entire body is attuned to Otabek, his scent, his arousal, the feeling of his hard cock pounding into him. Yuri is so wet that he can smell himself. His hole is leaking and his cock is spent but still hard against his hip.

He’s beyond over-stimulated. He’s exhausted and sore but it feels so goddamn _good_. Everything about this is beyond description. He’s never had sex like this before, never _felt_ like this before. The omega in him is glowing, thriving and writhing under the touch of his alpha. The bond between them is pulsing like a living thing, strong and solid and so _good_. Yuri feels like part of Otabek in a way that he never has before. 

These pheromones, this heat is changing everything and nothing at the same time. They’ve always been this close, but this is somehow _more_. It’s more, more, more and for the first time in his life, Yuri is grateful that he presented omega.

Otabek grunts as Yuri digs his nails in and rakes them down his arms, peeling away skin and trailing blood in their wake. 

“Beka,” he gasps, feeling Otabek’s knot fatten up, locking them together. He doesn’t know how many times it’s been, so far. He doesn’t remember how many times it is that Otabek has filled him up, fucked this insanity right out of him.

He clings, nails dug in and panting.

“Yura,” Otabek chokes, hips still pushing into Yuri, even though he can’t pull out. His cry is jagged and weak when he comes, spilling himself inside of Yuri, pressing them as close together as he can. 

Yuri tightens his legs around Otabek until his thighs burn, relishing every jerk of Otabek’s hips, every pulse of come that he can smell. He tips his head back and lets the relief of it wash over him.

“You smell so good,” Otabek gasps, voice wrecked as his body shakes with every fresh wave of his orgasm.

“Breed me,” Yuri whispers.

Otabek goes relatively still. “What?”

Yuri claws at his back again, nuzzling into the sweaty hollow of his shoulder and neck. His head feels full and fuzzy, pleasant, like he’s floating or stuffed full of cotton. “Fuck me. Give me a baby.”

“ _Yuri_ ,” Otabek gasps, hips grinding forward like he can’t help it. He pins Yuri’s hip with one hand as he shudders anew. “I don’t—you didn’t…” he trails off.

Somewhere, buried deep in the back of his head, an alarm starts to ring, but Yuri can’t hear it. All he can feel and sense and smell is Otabek. The pit in his belly eases with every pulse of come inside of him, sated and content. The fact that he knows that he’s on birth control right now doesn’t even register. It doesn’t matter. Otabek will give him what he wants. Everything that he needs. He always has.


	2. Chapter 2

There are plenty of things that Otabek doesn’t like about being an alpha. The sudden knowledge that every six months he’ll go into rut and lose control over himself, having to relearn his own body, having to decide how he wants to present himself and knowing how people will perceive him now. 

It’s like becoming an entirely new person even though he refuses to let it change him.

And then there’s Yuri. 

He’d nearly lost what he had just begun to build with Yuri, before it even got a chance to really grow. Yuri distrusted and disliked alphas but he’d wanted him anyway.

Yuri is his bright spot, the light in the metaphorical darkness. The bond he’s cultivated with Yuri both pains and emboldens everything that he does. The distance aches like nothing he’s ever felt before, but the fierceness of its promise, the warmth that it gives him, makes everything worth it.

He wants Yuri, head to toe, inside and out. Any embarrassingly emotional description he can think of for how he feels about Yuri is accurate. 

Yuri makes the parts of himself that he doesn’t like feel normal. The things that he hates bring Yuri comfort, make him feel good and secure. But what he hates most about himself is that when Yuri presses his face into his shoulder and pleads with him for a child, it makes him come.

He should be disgusted with himself, because he knows it’s the hormones. He knows it’s Yuri’s basest instincts; it’s what an omega’s heat is for, despite the biological improbability of it. It isn’t really Yuri saying it to him, but it’s still enough to rip a mind-blowing orgasm from him. 

Yuri’s heat pheromones affect him as well, hanging in the air like a heavy, cloying perfume. He wants to give Yuri everything that he asks for, to please him, to make him feel good, to make him whimper and come and collapse, exhausted at the end of every round. 

He wants to give Yuri this too.

He thinks.

Still, Yuri sinks back to the bed, satisfied with Otabek’s knot swollen inside of him. Otabek follows him down, propping himself up on his elbows and panting for breath. Yuri doesn’t move except to let his legs fall open around Otabek, now that the strength has been sapped from them. He’s weak and completely vulnerable like this and Otabek can’t imagine trusting anyone else this much. It makes him feel honored instead of powerful, like the alpha urges clawing at the back of his brain are telling him he should. 

He loves Yuri and he doesn’t deserve this, he’s earned it. He’s earned Yuri’s love and trust and he can’t believe they’re actually here, like this. 

Otabek presses his sweaty face into Yuri’s neck and closes his eyes. He has time to pull himself together, because Yuri is like this after every orgasm. It’s like his body shorts out and he has to recover from it. Otabek has no idea if this is normal behavior for an omega in heat, if this is too much for Yuri, if it’s something that he should be concerned about or not. The first time it happened, Otabek had very nearly panicked at how still Yuri was; but they’d been tied together and there was nothing Otabek could do but wait it out.

Yuri’s sweaty palms are still flat against his forearms and Otabek is reluctant to nudge them away to make himself more comfortable. His knot lasts longer like this and his back is starting to hurt from the amount of times they’ve gone at it today. Yuri’s deep in his heat now, the pull its strongest, and Yuri is the least lucid he’s been since this started. He’s almost sick with it. 

Otabek strokes his sweaty hair from his cheek; he’ll have to tie Yuri’s hair back again when his knot shrinks enough to pull out. First he cleans Yuri up and then he gets him to eat and drink, if he can stand it. But it’s been hours since Yuri even acted like he could understand him.

Otabek takes the opportunity to just look at him. Yuri just looks exhausted, his skin tacky with dried sweat, even though Otabek just washed him a couple of hours ago. There’s a slight curl to his mouth, like he’s satisfied, even in his sleep-like state. Like Otabek is doing everything right, for him.

There’s a sharp, anxious pull in his belly when he thinks about Yuri’s words. The thing that made him come the last time. 

A baby. _Breed me_.

He closes his eyes and shudders, grateful that he’s no longer coming because the guilt that he’d feel if that thought had wrung another aftershock from him would be never ending.

Logically he knows that Yuri is on birth control. He knows that that was part of their compromise to spending this heat together. Otabek hadn’t been sure about it, about whether or not he would be in control of himself, able to adequately take care of Yuri’s non-sexual needs, or if he’d be too wrapped up in Yuri’s heat to notice them at all. But Yuri had assured him that it wouldn’t be a problem, that their bond would alert Otabek if Yuri was in any serious danger. 

Later, Yuri agreed to birth control as a precautionary measure. 

Otabek knows it’s just his heat. Just the hormones. Just the omega pulsing inside of him that wants this heat to succeed. It’s the whole purpose of a heat, to produce offspring. He knows this. He knows that Yuri is likely infertile anyway. But hearing it from Yuri, hearing the words in his raspy, desperate voice just feels different. 

Otabek will take him however he comes, infertile or not. That’s not what he wants out of Yuri; it hadn’t even figured into his thinking. But does _Yuri_ want it? Is this something that they need to think about in the future? It’s a talk he knows that they need to have, but he can already hear Yuri’s objections to it.

With a groan, Otabek presses his face into the gap between Yuri’s shoulder and the pillow, breathing in his warm, sticky scent. He’s overthinking this. He knows he is. It’s just Yuri’s heat talking and if there were anything more to the conversation, Yuri would have it with him.

 

\--

 

He spends the next two days alternating between fucking Yuri until his hips are bruised and his dick feels like it’s going to fall off, and cleaning him up, bathing him and forcing him to drink out of water bottles that he’s too shaky to hold himself. It’s almost frightening how much Yuri is depending on him. Otabek finds himself thinking about all of the heats that Yuri has had since he presented. All of the times that he’s gone through this alone.

Did anyone check on him? Make sure he was eating and drinking? Was he just left to lie on his bed, a total mess of hormones and desperation? 

Otabek forces the thoughts away and puts everything he has into taking care of Yuri _now_. He comforts himself with the fact that Yuri will never go through another heat alone.

 

\--

 

Otabek wakes to a low groan. Yuri is on his stomach and he hunches his body, drawing his knees up and dropping his head between his shoulders to rest against the mattress. Otabek had just changed the sheets a while ago; he’d thought they were nearing the end of this. Still, he reaches over to brush his fingers against Yuri’s bicep.

“Yura? You need me?” he asks, voice thick with sleep and hoarse from the lack of it. 

Yuri doesn’t move, breathing loud enough to fill the space between them. The only other noise in the apartment is Flura as she scampers around the kitchen, her nails clicking against the tile as she plays with something.

“Yuri?” Otabek asks again, brushing his thumb back and forth over a tiny smattering of moles on Yuri’s arm. They look like a star.

Finally, Yuri shakes his head, slowly back and forth, hair dragging and crackling with static as he rubs it against the fitted sheet. 

Otabek blows out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Is it over?”

“I think so.” Yuri pulls the pillow in front of him down to rest his cheek on it and looks at Otabek. He stretches his legs out with a groan and collapses onto his stomach. He looks more tired than Otabek has ever seen him. He turns on his side and cups Yuri’s neck gently in his palm, thumb settled over his pulse; it’s thudding along at a normal pace again.

Otabek leans in to kiss his forehead, letting it linger for a long moment, before he gets out of bed and pads into the kitchen. Flura comes scampering out with one of her toys in her mouth as he passes.

A bottle of water and a protein bar in hand, he returns to bed. Yuri has his eyes closed and they don’t open, even when Otabek climbs back in beside him. He pulls the covers up and situates them around Yuri before he nudges him gently.

“No,” Yuri grumbles.

Otabek can’t stop the fond roll of his eyes. “You need to drink a little.”

“’m tired, Beka.”

“I know,” Otabek says, uncapping the bottle. “But you need to. You sweat a lot.” He doesn’t want to add to that, how Yuri lost even more fluids. His cheeks heat a little.

Yuri groans and buries his face in the pillow. “Let me _sleep_.”

Otabek heaves a sigh. “Yura,” he says, instilling just a touch of the persuasion he’s learning to control into his voice, “please.”

Yuri pushes himself up onto his elbows and glares, his matted hair hanging in lank clumps around his face. He looks pissed as he shifts his weight to one elbow and snatches the bottle from Otabek’s hand, spilling some over the blankets as he goes. Yuri sucks down half the bottle before he shoves it back at Otabek and collapses into the pillow again, head turned away.

Otabek sets the bottle aside and watches Yuri for a moment.

“Hate it when you do that,” he mumbles, like he can feel Otabek’s gaze on his back.

“I know. I’m sorry.” 

Yuri sighs. “It’s fine.”

Otabek watches Flura drop her toy and look for the best place to jump up onto the bed. 

“What does it feel like?” he asks as the cat leaps onto the bed and make her way quickly to Yuri.

“Your alpha voice?”

“Yeah.”

Yuri lifts a hand from the blankets to pet Flura, who purrs and preens under the attention. 

“I don’t know,” he says unhelpfully. “Not like—you couldn’t _make_ me do anything I didn’t want to do. But I just feel like… like I _want_ to. Like it’d make you happy if I did it so I want to do it.”

Otabek has never heard anyone describe what alpha influence feels like but he’s comforted by the way Yuri has put it into words. He’s been afraid to use the influence over Yuri, unsure of the extent of its power, and to hear that it doesn’t actually _force_ Yuri to do something brings more comfort to him than he’d even realized that he’d needed.

He blows out a breath and lies back down beside Yuri. 

A long moment passes before Yuri huffs, “You can touch me, you know.”

Otabek wasn’t sure Yuri wanted him to, but now he rests a hand on the dip of his waist and settles in. Yuri takes hold of his arm and guides him closer, pulling him until his hand rests over the flat of Yuri’s belly and his chest is just brushing Yuri’s back.

Yuri sighs quietly and this time it sounds more content than anything else.

Even with the blankets between them, Otabek can feel the warmth of Yuri’s stomach under his hand. He’s still running hot, his body overtaxed and flushing out excess hormones. Otabek’s surprised he even wants him this close, right now, but he won’t question it.

His nose brushes the back of Yuri’s neck and his fingers flex as he tries to get comfortable. With Yuri’s flat belly under his palm, his words from earlier rattle around Otabek’s brain.

_Breed me._

_Give me a baby._

Otabek pulls Yuri in tightly against him, pinching his eyes shut and burying his nose in sweaty, blonde hair. Yuri grumbles at the manhandling but he says nothing. 

Otabek wonders how he’s supposed to broach the subject. Or if he’s even supposed to mention it at all. 

 

\--

 

Otabek wakes to Yuri sitting crosslegged beside him on the bed. It’s dark out, rain pattering against the window, and Yuri is lit only by the bedside lamp and the glow of his phone screen. He’s concentrating so hard on whatever he’s typing that he doesn’t notice Otabek watching him.

It’s late September and already starting to get cold at night, and Yuri sits in red sweatpants with the Russian flag on the thigh, faded from so many washes, and a thin, white t-shirt, his wet hair tied up in a sloppy bun, dripping onto his shoulders. 

He’s beautiful.

“You’ll catch a cold, like that,” Otabek says. Yuri jumps, nearly dropping his phone and scowling at Otabek.

“You could have said you were awake.”

“That would have scared you too,” Otabek says around a yawn, pushing himself to sit up against the headboard. “You really should dry your hair.”

Yuri rolls his eyes, wiggling his bare toes around a bit. “You sound like my Grandpa.”

“The wisdom of your elders,” Otabek says loftily.

Yuri locks his phone after he sends his last text and crawls the short distance between them to nestle into Otabek’s side. He rubs at his nose as he yawns, then tucks his hands in between his chest and Otabek’s, making himself small. Otabek pulls him close with an arm around him. Yuri smells like his shampoo.

“More like old wives tale bullshit,” Yuri says belatedly, his voice tired. 

When Otabek looks down, his eyes are shut. He strokes at the exposed skin of Yuri’s arm, finding it chilly.

“Get under the blankets,” he says, pushing and prodding until Yuri does. Cold toes find his exposed legs and he bites off a curse as Yuri grins up at him. “I lied, go sleep on the floor.”

Yuri latches onto him with both arms in a crushing grip that makes Otabek’s ribs ache. “Make me.”

“I can’t breathe.”

Yuri doesn’t let up. 

Eventually, Otabek settles his arms around Yuri again and the bone-bruising hold around his own chest eases. He runs a hand up through Yuri’s wet hair, but his fingers catch one too many times, so he settles for stroking the back of his neck, fingertip pressed over the soft indent of his scent gland.

Yuri lets out a quiet, content sound. 

“How are you feeling?”

Yuri shrugs. “Sore. Tired. Glad it’s over.” A beat passes. “Better than I’ve ever felt after any other heat, though.”

A knot in Otabek’s chest begins to unravel at that. “Yeah?” he asks. 

Yuri nods. “It’s hard to explain, though. This one was rougher than any of the other ones I’ve had but it was better because I had you. I knew you’d take care of it.”

Otabek lets that float around his brain for a moment. “This one was rougher?”

“Probably because of the bond. My body knew I had you and a better chance at my heat succeeding or something.”

It sounds less like a guess and more like practical knowledge but Otabek doesn’t push it. This feels like the opening he didn’t actually think he’d get. Heat creeps along his neck as he tightens his grip involuntarily around Yuri.

“How lucid were you?”

Yuri blows out a breath that Otabek can feel through his shirt. “Sometimes very, sometimes not at all. I don’t remember parts of it and other stuff I do.”

“Do you remember things you said?”

Yuri goes unnaturally still under his arm. “Some,” he says after a pause. Otabek hesitates and Yuri’s patience seems to dissolve in an instant. “Spit it out. What did I say?”

“Nothing bad, Yura,” Otabek says, bringing a hand up to rub at his face as Yuri sits up to glare at him; his sudden departure leaves Otabek’s whole left side cold. 

“ _What?_ ” Yuri presses.

Otabek puts a hand on his thigh and when Yuri doesn’t immediately swat it away, he knows that Yuri is more afraid than angry. He squeezes through the blankets. “Yuri.”

“Beka, just _tell_ me,” he says, looking suddenly weary, far beyond his age.

He reaches for Yuri’s hand instead, finding his fingers cold and clammy. “You just said… a few times, that you wanted—“ Otabek cuts himself off. He’s an adult, he reminds himself, he can say this. “That you wanted a baby.”

If he’d thought Yuri was still before, it’s nothing compared to how rigid he is now. He stares at Otabek with wide eyes, unblinking, his face is pale but his cheeks are pinking up at a rapid pace. Otabek knows that he needs to say something to deflate whatever embarrassment is ballooning up inside of Yuri right now, but it feels like his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. He swallows, trying to wet his throat.

“Okay,” Yuri says, his voice cracking around the word. “So that’s the point of a heat. I don’t have any control over my instincts, when I’m like that and you know it. So why bring it up?”

Otabek shakes his head. “I know it’s an instinct.”

“So why even bring it up?” Yuri presses, only now the words have taken on a desperate tinge. “I can’t help it. I can’t help wanting it when that’s what I’m made for.”

“You’re not _made_ for it, Yuri,” Otabek snaps back, suddenly angry at the implication. Yuri’s heat hormones must still be snaking through his blood to make him even think that, let alone say it.

Yuri snatches his hand out from under Otabek’s and presses his fist against his own belly. “What’s inside of me is. My instincts aren’t that dull and I know I can’t have it but that doesn’t mean I might not want it.”

Otabek feels like Yuri slapped him with the confession. “We’re young,” is all that he manages to get out. Yuri shoves him.

“I know we’re young!” he shouts, too loud for the time of night. “I don’t mean right _now_ , but—“ Yuri cuts himself off suddenly, turning and kicking the covers away as he stumbles out of bed. Otabek doesn’t know where he’s going but he’s not going to let Yuri stomp outside like this, so he struggles out after him, moving to block the path to the door. 

He holds his hands up. “Yuri, I get it,” he says. “Part of it. I get the instincts and I get that your heat made you say it, but I don’t get the rest of it. I don’t get why you’re angry with me.”

“I’m embarrassed,” Yuri hisses. “It’s just one more thing I can’t control about myself! _Two_ things! I can’t control wanting it and I can’t control not being able to have it.”

Otabek blinks. “What do you mean?”

“I went to the doctor before I came here. I kept having dreams that I was pregnant and I was scared that I was. When I found out I wasn’t…” he trails off, biting his lip and looking down at the floor between them. One of Flura’s cat toys sits off to the right of Yuri’s bare toes. “I don’t want it _now_ , but what if—“ Yuri swipes at his nose with the back of his hand. “What if I can’t _ever_? I probably can’t. And Viktor tried to pay for fertility testing for me but I—“

“Viktor tried?”

Yuri looks up like he’d almost forgotten that Otabek was there, like he was confessing to himself this whole time. Maybe he was. Now Yuri looks like he’s said more than he meant to and that, more than anything, makes Otabek’s anger bubble to the surface.

“What does Viktor have to do with anything?”

Otabek doubts that Yuri would ever lie to him but he looks like he wants to, right now. 

“I asked him to come with me.”

The admission hits Otabek like a punch straight to the chest. “What?” he asks, sounding breathless even to his own ears. “You took Viktor? Why? Why did you even go? Why didn’t you tell _me?_ ” The questions keep coming and Otabek has to stop himself from spewing out another.

Yuri looks defensive, his shoulders hunched and his mouth tightened into a line, glare pinned off to the side with his fists clenched. He looks angry. He looks embarrassed. 

“I was afraid,” he finally forces out, face flushed to a shade of red that Otabek can see even in the relative darkness of the apartment.

“Afraid of what?” 

“What if I was pregnant?”

“So you took _Viktor?_ ”

Something inside of Otabek feels as defeated as it does angry at Yuri’s admission. His heart aches with every beat, pounding against the inside of his chest. He feels like he needs to sit down.

Yuri throws his hands out. “Why is _Viktor_ the sticking point, here?” His eyes are shining wetly in the lamplight.

“Because he’s an alpha!” Otabek shouts. He’s immediately aware that this is the first time that he’s so much as raised his voice at Yuri, and the guilt of that knowledge is heavy and instant. He takes a breath and rakes both hands through his hair, trying to calm himself. “You took another alpha with you. You involved someone—you let him take care of you—“

“I didn’t let him _take care of me_ ,” Yuri says, looking like the words taste as vile as they seem to feel coming out. “I asked him for help—”

“You should have asked _me_ ,” Otabek cuts him off, voice sharp. “Why couldn’t you ask me? You’d rather have Viktor with you?”

Yuri opens his mouth but all that comes out is a quiet, breathy sound before he closes it again. Both hands come up to rub against his eyes, looking suddenly miserable. “Don’t be mad at me, Beka. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Telling me would have been a start.”

Yuri turns and paces the short length of the bed, back and forth, the heels of his hands still pressed to his eyes, before he stops and sits down suddenly. He covers his face with both hands, hair hanging in wet tangles.

“I’m sorry,” he finally rasps. “I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know—I…” he trails off and he takes a shaky breath.

Otabek feels his anger begin to melt almost immediately. He heaves a sigh and crosses the short distance until he can sit down in front of Yuri, their knees almost touching.

“Try,” he says.

Yuri keeps his face covered for a moment before he sits up, pushing his hair back and twisting it up into a bun that stays in place without a tie. 

He sniffs before he starts speaking. “This is hard for me. Not the being with you part. The…” he makes a frustrated sound and pulls his hair down again; Otabek remains silent and waits. “We’re both too young for kids _now_. I want to focus on skating and so do you, but down the road…” Yuri looks at him and Otabek nods. “I think I’d like that.” His face is flushed again.

“Me too,” Otabek says. He wants to reach out and put a hand on Yuri’s knee but he keeps his hands to himself. He needs Yuri to say whatever it is he’s thinking. Otabek needs to understand whatever thought process had led him to involving Viktor where Otabek should have been.

A fleeting, pleased, little smile flits over Yuri’s mouth before he schools his features again. “I guess… I was afraid of what your reaction might be.”

“To which part?”

Yuri shrugs. “All of it. You said before that you’d be fine with it, if I’m infertile, but you never said—we never talked about the alternative. And if I had been…” he looks down at his lap again, twisting his fingers together.

“I’d have supported you, no matter what. You know that.”

“Yeah, but, Beka…” He draws his top teeth over his bottom lip and holds it in his mouth. His eyes are so light. “You would have come out. It’s so far and it’s so expensive. Your rut was so close and I didn’t want to worry you about anything. I knew it was probably nothing, and Viktor’s just… he’s just _there_. It sounds stupid, in hindsight. He said you’d be angry I didn’t tell you.”

At least Viktor hadn’t been entirely complacent.

“I didn’t want to go to the doctor looking like an unmated omega trying to get a pregnancy test,” he sighs, slumping back against the side of the mattress. “Especially not at my age. And then she offered fertility testing and Viktor told me he’d pay for it.”

“Why didn’t you get it?” Otabek asks, the anger mostly gone out of him; he genuinely wants to know. “Why not find out for sure?”

Yuri closes his eyes, his head tipped back. “Because then I’d know, Beka. If I know for sure… and I can, then I know we have a shot later. But my last doctor said it’s so unlikely that he wouldn’t even recommend me having the test done.” His bottom lip quivers before he bites down on it for a moment. “If I can’t, then that’s the end of it. And, as much as I wish I didn’t have my omega instincts, I _do_ have them. And I _do_ want kids.” 

Otabek’s heart breaks a little when he hears the crack in Yuri’s voice. 

“Yura.”

“Not now but later.”

“Yurochka.”

Yuri looks miserable when he opens his eyes again. “I wish I didn’t feel this way and I wish I didn’t have to tell you. But I can’t help it.”

“I’m glad you told me. I wish you would have told me sooner but…” Otabek trails off, putting his hand on Yuri’s knee. Yuri takes it and threads their fingers together a moment later.

“I’m sorry, Beka.”

“If you’re apologizing about Viktor, then I forgive you. On the condition that you don’t involve him over me in our personal business again.” Yuri nods. “If you’re apologizing for instincts that you can’t control—“

“No,” Yuri cuts him off. “I’m not. I’m trying to not hate my instincts.”

After a moment, Otabek nods. “Let’s get off the floor.”

Yuri allows himself to be pulled up and ushered back into bed. He picks up his phone and rocks it back and forth between his hands, watching as Otabek lies down again. He looks hesitant but when Otabek holds out his arm, Yuri squirms down under the blankets to nestle up under it.

For as rarely as it happens, Otabek hates arguing with Yuri. They already have so little time together, he doesn’t want to squander it away by fighting. 

“My mom is going to bring up children when we meet with her,” Otabek warns. “She won’t be nice about anything. She rarely is. You have to tell me what you want me to tell her.”

Yuri yawns against his chest. “To mind her own fucking business.”

Otabek pinches his side and Yuri jolts with a surprised laugh; he smacks Otabek’s stomach for good measure. 

“You promised you’d try to get along with her.”

“That doesn’t sound like me.” Otabek sighs and Yuri relents immediately. “Fine, fine,” he grumbles, settling in again. “Lucky I love you.”

“I am. But think about it, all right? Odds are good that she’s going to say things neither of us are going to like but I still want to walk away from this with her blessing, if we can.”

Yuri’s finger tips against his chest. “What if she doesn’t give it?” his voice is quiet and carefully inflectionless. 

Otabek drops a kiss to the top of his head. “Then it’s a good thing we have your Grandpa’s.”

Yuri squeezes him so hard that his ribs creak.

 

\--

 

Otabek loves his mother. He can attest to her quiet, sometimes harsh personality and aloof demeanor; he knows how she can come off to others as rude and too stuck in their old marriage traditions. But he also knows her better than that. She has given him and Jasna both everything that she can, and it’s been a lot. 

She may seem interested only in Otabek’s success, but she’s the one who set him up for it. Taking him to practices and financing everything until he started landing sponsors. She was the one to comfort him after losses and hug him after wins. She still calls him every week to make sure that he’s done his grocery shopping and that he’s sleeping enough.

He loves his mother, without question, and he wants her to at least like Yuri, even though he knows their personalities will clash.

Yuri is visibly nervous as they make the trek up the front walk. He watches Otabek key in the security code on the gate and then reaches for his arm the moment they walk through. The house itself isn’t huge but it’s modern and well kept and in one of the richer suburbs of the city. 

Otabek remembers his dad taking him for rides around the block on his motorcycle and his mother being furious about it. He remembers running around the yard with Jasna toddling after him, squealing her delight while his mother watched. He remembers spending his summers outside here with other kids from the neighborhood, skinning his knees on the pavement, playing street hockey until it was too dark to see, and then eventually losing all of those friends as skating took over more and more of his life.

He leans over to press a kiss to Yuri’s temple as they reach the door.

Otabek has a key but he won’t use it when he knows someone is home, and now, it just feels like he should ring the bell and wait. Otabek puts his hand on the small of Yuri’s back and listens to him take a steadying breath. The door is heaved open before he can say anything, however, and then Jasna is flinging herself at him.

“Beka!” she shouts as she collides with him. She’s all bony knees and sharp elbows, nails poking at his neck as she tosses her arms around it. 

He catches her and holds her tight, pressing a kiss to her cheek before setting her back on her feet. She immediately turns her excited gaze on Yuri, who straightens up, like he’s subconsciously trying to make himself taller; Jasna, he notes, is not much shorter than Yuri is. 

“Hi, Yuri,” she says without waiting to be introduced. 

Yuri looks tense. He doesn’t have the chance to get out more than a, “hi—“ before Jasna is hugging him too. Otabek has to bite back a laugh at the scene; Yuri with his arms held out awkwardly, looking stunned, his mouth hanging open, and Otabek’s little sister clinging to him.

Jasna lets go before Yuri has a chance to respond. She takes Otabek’s hand. 

“Mom’s been cooking all morning,” she tells him. “We’re not allowed in the kitchen.”

Otabek rolls his eyes skyward and asks for strength. 

“Well, for the sake of being official,” he says, looking between the two of them, “Yuri, my sister, Jasna.”

“Hi,” Yuri says. He’s quiet but there’s actually a small smile on his face, if only for a moment.

“Hi,” Jasna says, leaning against Otabek’s side, still squeezing his hand. A wave of guilt washes over him suddenly, realizing how infrequently he sees his sister, despite living relatively close. He has to do better, he thinks, looking down at her and smiling.

They follow Jasna inside the house and Otabek watches Yuri look around. He wants to go speak to his mother but he also doesn’t want to irritate her before Yuri really has the chance to meet her properly. He blows out a breath and searches for something to say, at an uncommon loss for words.

“Do you want to see Otabek’s old room?” Jasna pipes up.

Yuri perks up immediately at the suggestion, something resembling smug settling over his face. “Of course I do.”

Jasna grabs Yuri’s hand and drags him toward the stairs; Yuri looks surprised the entire time. 

Otabek’s bedroom has mostly been left untouched; he left home at a young age to train in other countries and just never came back. A part of him thinks his mother is still waiting for him to return but he would never say it out loud because she’d brush it off as overly sentimental. The walls are still covered with remnants of his childhood, but few of them are from skating. If Yuri notices, he doesn’t mention it.

Yuri makes a full circuit of the room, looking at the pictures of Otabek and his family and his friends from primary school, tacked up with pushpins in disorderly rows. He raises his eyebrows at Otabek at the cd insert booklets he has stuck up in one corner, politely ignoring his late 2000s musical tastes. 

There’s a soft smile on Yuri’s face as he pauses over the picture of Otabek, barely ten years old, holding a newborn Jasna. One of his bottom teeth is half grown in and his hair is long and wild, curling over his forehead and into his eyes. His mother had hated his hair like that but his father had allowed him to keep it.

Yuri looks to the picture beside it, Otabek on his father’s shoulders, laughing and his father smiling. There’s a sharp pang of hurt in his chest when he remembers how soon after his father had passed. It clearly bleeds into his scent because Yuri reaches a hand out for him, his own scent going soft and soothing.

Otabek takes that hand, fitting his fingers between Yuri’s.

“Your father?” Otabek nods. “Handsome,” Yuri says decidedly. 

There’s a moment where Otabek’s throat is too tight for him to speak, his mouth too dry. Jasna either senses it or she just can’t wait to embarrass Otabek because she comes over and grabs Yuri’s free hand, giving it a tug. 

“Look at this!” 

It takes a second too long for Otabek to realize where his sister is leading Yuri. She already has him out of reach and looking at the most embarrassing thing still left in the room.

Yuri is already smiling, showing off his teeth. He gives Otabek a devilish smirk before looking back at the picture. 

“I didn’t even know this existed,” he said. “I don’t remember it being taken.”

“Well, you were young,” Otabek mumbles, rubbing at the back of his neck.

The picture is an old one, a snapshot of the summer camp that Otabek had attended where he’d first met Yuri. He doesn’t know why he’s kept it on display, since then, when he could have just buried it in his bedside table, but it’s there, on display for all to see. Jasna is still holding tight to Yuri’s hand while she embarrasses him. Still, Otabek doesn’t hate it, for all that it makes his face flush.

A moment later, his mother shouts up to them that lunch is ready. Yuri looks like he’d rather climb out the window, but he tips his head up and offers Otabek a tight smile before following him downstairs.

 

\--

 

“Mom, this is Yuri.” Yuri appears steady as he lowers his head in a bow. He looks like he’s steeled his nerves and is ready for whatever this meeting will throw at him. Otabek puts his hand on Yuri’s shoulder blade. “Yuri, my mother, Ayana.”

Otabek counts four agonizing beats of his heart before his mother inclines her head in turn. It’s brief, but it happens and that’s the important part. 

Otabek’s positive line of thinking grinds to a halt a moment later when his mother says, “You may call me Mrs. Altin.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Yuri says, sticking his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.

His mother looks regal in her dark red hijab and matching lipstick. She always looks like a queen and now she’s pairing a judgmental look at Yuri with it; the tension is already growing and thriving.

Jasna breaks the awkward silence by opening the refrigerator and asking everyone what they want to drink. Otabek takes a steadying breath and thanks the stars for his sister.

His mother at least waits until they’re all seated around the kitchen table (thankfully not the formal dining room) to begin her onslaught.

“So, Yuri, tell me about your family.”

Otabek nudges his foot up against Yuri’s.

“There isn’t much to tell. My father has never been around. My mother gave me up to my Grandpa when I was two, and I’m an only child.”

There’s a stirring of pride in Otabek’s chest for how calm Yuri is, despite the nerves he knows Yuri was nearly overwhelmed with this morning. He reaches over and squeezes Yuri’s wrist, drawing his gaze and a brief smile. When he looks back, his mother is watching him with an unreadable look in her eyes. She blinks slowly and looks back to Yuri.

“Was your father an alpha?”

“Yes,” Yuri says, offering nothing more. 

The topic is a tense one and Otabek had warned Yuri that it was coming, but the tension in Yuri’s body is leeching onto his scent, souring enough that Jasna sniffs and rubs at her nose. Otabek tries to make himself smell comforting, a feat he’s still not certain that he’s actually succeeding at. Judging from the look on his mother’s face, he is; his cheeks heat at the realization.

“And your Grandfather?”

“A beta.”

“You’re awfully tight-lipped, Yuri,” his mother says, matter of fact.

“Mom,” Otabek says, “I told you, it’s a sensitive subject.”

His mother shoots him a look. “Let him speak for himself, Otabek.”

Yuri is silent again under the pressure of the gazes pinned on him. Finally, he says, “It’s a sensitive subject, ma’am.”

Otabek bites back the inappropriate laughter bubbling up in his throat. His mother still glances at him. 

“Eat, Otabek.”

Things are quiet for a while, just the clink of cutlery on fine dishware as they work their way through the extensive meal his mother has cooked for them. Otabek is sure it carries some heavier meaning than wanting to welcome Otabek’s chosen bondmate. It’s probably meant to intimidate. _This is what I expect for my son_. Or something along those lines.

“This is good, mama,” Jasna says, dipping another bite of manti into a dish of butter sauce.

“Thank you, love,” she says, patting Jasna’s hand.

Yuri looks at him with his eyebrows raised, the profanities he’s thinking written clearly in his eyes.

“Hey, Yuri,” it’s Jasna’s voice that pulls Yuri’s attention away this time.

“Yeah?” he asks, knocking his foot against Otabek’s over and over.

Jasna sticks another bite of manti into her mouth and then proceeds to ask around it, “Since you’re an omega, can you have babies?”

Otabek doesn’t drop his fork but it’s a near thing. “ _Jasna_ ,” he snaps.

“What?” she asks, completely unaware, in the innocence that only a child bears, of the trouble she’s just stirred up. It’s not that it wasn’t coming anyway, he just didn’t expect it to come from her. Yuri certainly didn’t either, judging by the wideness of his eyes and the color slowly infringing on his cheeks.

“Not cool,” Otabek tells her.

His mother holds up her hand, her gaze fixed on Yuri. “Maybe not the right moment but still a conversation we should have.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Otabek stresses. “Seriously?”

She ignores him. “Yuri?” she asks expectantly.

Yuri has been staring down at his plate ever since he looked away from Jasna. One of his hands is still curled around his fork and the other is balled tightly into a fist on the tabletop. There’s a tic at the hinge of his jaw, the muscle jumping from how tightly he’s clenching it. He looks furious and Otabek doesn’t know how to diffuse the situation, his mind unhelpfully blank.

“Yuri—“

“I don’t know,” Yuri says, looking up at Otabek’s mother. “I don’t know if I can carry and I refuse to have the tests done to find out.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s none of your business, is what it is,” he says, flattening his palm against the table and leaning forward. 

His mother straightens, tipping her head back to look down her perfectly contoured nose at Yuri. “Typical disrespectful Russian behavior.”

Yuri’s chair squeaks as he pushes it out but Otabek grabs his wrist, holding him in place.

“Yura,” he says before turning to his mother. “This is out of line.”

“What’s out of line is this disrespectful boy coming in my house—“

Yuri’s hands bang against the table, making his silverware clatter and Jasna let out a little squeak. Otabek has never seen him so angry before. “I’m bonded to your son and I’m not going away, so no matter how beneath him you think I am—“

“What’s beneath my son is having a mate who doesn’t respect him enough to have his fertility tested—“

“Stop!” Otabek shouts, making everyone at the table jump. Jasna looks like she wants to cry and he wishes he could reach out to her first, but he can’t. He can’t let this go on. His mother takes a breath like she’s going to speak and he says, “enough. Please. Mom, you aren’t even giving him a chance.”

His mother closes her eyes for a moment and touches her temple like he’s giving her a headache. When she speaks, it’s in Kazakh. “You never told me that you two were bonded.”

“You never gave me the chance, mom,” Otabek responds in his native language. He looks to Yuri, who is still fuming silently, glaring down at his plate. “You promised me you’d try.”

At that she looks contrite. Her matte, black nails click against the tabletop for a moment before she puts her restless hands in her lap. “I only want what’s best for you, Otabek. There is tradition to think of.”

“Mom,” he says quietly, “please. I’m _happy_. Isn’t that enough?”

The silence that follows that statement is far less loaded than what had come before it. His mother seems to deflate a little, her face easing into something smoother, less angry. She reaches for his hand and Otabek takes hers. “I want both of my children to be happy, when they’re mated. But traditions are important too.”

“More important that how much I love him?” he glances at Yuri who hasn’t moved. He isn’t even sure that Yuri is hearing a word they’re saying. 

“Of course that’s important, Otabek.” She sounds like she means it, her voice quiet and sincere, almost like she’s telling him a secret.

“Then let me make my own choices and respect them.”

His mother lets out a breath. “Otabek,” she says, reaching out to stroke his cheek. “Don’t you want children? To carry on your family line? This boy can’t give you that.” She sounds sad, like the thought that his relationship might deprive Otabek of children hurts her. And it probably does.

“Mom,” he says quietly, taking hold of her hand, “there are other ways.” 

“Not to carry on your bloodline. If you’d let me help you choose—“

“I’ve made my choice. Things like that mean more to you than they do to me.”

The silence between them isn’t tense but it’s far from comfortable. Otabek realizes that they’ve been speaking in Kazakh this whole time and that Yuri has no idea what he’s saying. When he glances over, Yuri has his head down, his hair hanging in his eyes, his hands fisted in his lap. He looks as close to defeated as Otabek has ever seen him.

With one last squeeze of his mother’s hand, he reaches for Yuri’s, finding his fingers cold and clammy. Yuri doesn’t look at him when he lets Otabek thread their fingers together.

After another moment, Jasna pipes up again. “Don’t worry, mama, when I get older, Beka and Yuri can have one of my kids,” she says with all the sincerity only a child can offer.

Otabek only realizes that she’s said it in Russian when Yuri pulls his hand away and quietly excuses himself from the table. 

Otabek doesn’t let him get far, catching him in the hallway to the kitchen. He takes both of Yuri’s arms, expecting a struggle, but Yuri turns and sinks in against his chest. He’s ready to tell Yuri again that he doesn’t mind his infertility, that he doesn’t find Yuri lacking in any capacity, but Yuri speaks first.

“I hope we have fifty kids just to spite her.”

Otabek laughs, loud and unexpected at the words. He kisses Yuri’s temple and cheek and then his mouth.

“Are you all right?” he asks, voice going low and serious as he tips Yuri’s head back, with gentle hands, to look him in the eye.

Yuri nods. Otabek strokes his thumbs over the high, flushed ridges of Yuri’s cheekbones. 

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Otabek takes his hand but Yuri resists being pulled along. “Stop speaking Kazakh,” he says. “I hate it when I can’t understand you.”

“Deal,” Otabek agrees and Yuri lets himself be lead back to the table.

 

\--

 

When Otabek has kissed his sister goodbye and goes to hug his mother, she pulls him close and holds him tightly. 

“I don’t hate him,” she murmurs in their native language.

Otabek sighs. “I want you to like him.”

“I don’t like him for _you_ ,” she says. 

He leans back, straightening up to his full height. “I need you to respect him.”

She kisses Otabek on the cheek while she pats the other. “I’m trying.”

“Try harder. For me.”

 

\--

 

Yuri is quiet until they get back to the apartment. Otabek doesn’t push him to speak, doesn’t push him to rehash whatever it was that his mother had said to Yuri just before they’d left. He doesn’t want to rile Yuri up or push at the bruises the encounter with her likely left behind. Otabek had tried to prepare him for it but he’s not sure he succeeded, even though it hadn’t been as rough as he’d been anticipating.

Flura dances around their feet when they walk in, chirping up at them until Otabek bends to pet her. He watches Yuri kick his shoes off and pad a few paces away and stop. 

“Are you all right?” Otabek asks, straightening up as Flura runs off into the kitchen, claws clicking on the floor as she goes.

“I’m fine.”

“It won’t be as bad the next time,” Otabek tells him, toeing out of his boots and nudging them aside. 

Yuri turns as Otabek comes up behind him and yanks him down into a kiss that’s more teeth pressing against lips than anything. Otabek struggles to catch up as Yuri pushes his tongue into his mouth and starts tugging him back toward the bed. 

“Get your clothes off,” Yuri urges, breaking the kiss to pull at his belt. 

“Yuri, wait—“ 

Yuri kisses him quiet. “Fuck me. Come on. Show me how much you want me, Beka.”

Otabek closes his eyes and kisses him back, putting his hands on Yuri’s hips and setting him back on the bed. He crawls up after him, kissing him harder and deeper, nudging his head back against the blankets. They should talk, and they will, but right now, if this is what Yuri wants, Otabek will give it to him.


	3. Chapter 3

_She doesn’t think I’m good enough for him._

> (8:15pm): u are Yuri!!! U guys are so good together!!

_She doesn’t even like that I’m Russian._

> (8:16pm): srsly?

_Because I personally started the Cold War ya know._

“Yuri.”

“Hmm?” Yuri doesn’t look up from his phone. He hears Otabek shuffling around the room, getting dressed. 

As that thought registers, he lifts his eyes from the screen while Guang Hong is typing, watching Otabek’s back muscles bunch and flex as he’s digging through his dresser for a shirt. 

“Are you going to get dressed?”

“In a minute.”

His phone vibrates again and he looks down.

> (8:18pm): well from one commie to another I understand lol. But for real Yuri she’ll get over it once she sees how happy u 2 are together. I didn’t know Otabek was even able to smile before he got with u. He’s so happy now even Leo sees it and he’s oblivious 2 everything

Yuri can’t help the small smile that lifts the corner of his mouth. He glances up at Otabek again, just as he tugs a tight, black shirt with a deep v-neck over his head.

_He makes me happy too. But like meeting his mom wasn’t enough he’s djing tonight at a club and I have to meet his best friend who I’m not sure isn’t in love with him._

“Yuri.”

“Just a second.”

“We’ll be late.”

> (8:20pm): !!!!!!! WHAT??? This is not your day! U can text me though me n Leo just got done practicing so I’ll be around.

_Thanks, I’ll let you know if I need reinforcements._

Guang Hong sends back a flurry of angry emojis and the flexing bicep. Yuri snorts.

> (8:21pm): I CAN BE THERE IN LIKE FIFTEEN HOURS

_You’re a good friend._

And he is. He really is. Yuri locks his phone and looks up to find himself alone in the room. He slides off the bed and goes to root around in the drawer Otabek had cleared out for him to put his things in. He settles on a pair of ripped, black, skinny jeans and a faded, old band shirt he’d bought secondhand because he’d liked the logo. He dresses quickly and squeezes into the bathroom.

Otabek stands at the sink, working product through his hair using his fingers as a comb. 

“I know you don’t want to go to this,” Otabek says, keeping his gaze on his own reflection in the mirror, “so I wanted to say thank you.”

Yuri hops up to sit on the minimal counter space so he can watch Otabek’s face and not his reflection. “I want to go.”

Otabek gives him a flat look.

“I _do_ ,” he insists. “Especially now that I’m old enough.”

Otabek rolls his eyes but there’s a smile on his face. “You’re such a shit. And you’re still not old enough.”

“Well, it’s a good thing my boyfriend’s the special guest DJ then, isn’t it?” Yuri feels an unexpected rush of pride in his belly at his own words. This, almost as much as skating, is something that Otabek loves, and Yuri is excited to be able to witness it without having to sneak around this time.

Otabek leans over to kiss him as he runs his hands under the faucet. “You’re very fortunate.”

Yuri sticks his tongue out and Otabek flicks water at him.

“Seriously, though,” Otabek says as he dries his hands off, “are you sure you feel up to this? I love Maxim but he’s a handful.” He pauses. “He’s a dick. But he means well.”

“Wow, such a glowing review,” Yuri deadpans, leaning back until his head is resting against the mirror. “Nothing could be like meeting your mother.” Otabek looks almost ashamed; Yuri nudges him with his foot. “Look, I can handle whatever he’s gonna do or say so long as you _promise_ me that he doesn’t still have feelings for you.”

Otabek folds the hand towel over the bar on the wall. “He never had feelings for me, I keep telling you. It was never like that.”

“I can’t see someone wanting to fuck you without having feelings.”

To his delight, Otabek actually starts to blush. Yuri pushes himself up and leans closer to Otabek only to be pushed away with a hand to the face. Yuri laughs.

“I swear to you, it was never like that. He was horny, I was horny, that was it.”

“But it happened more than once,” Yuri points out.

Otabek hooks his hands in the hollows of Yuri’s knees and pulls them open, slotting himself between them, and then tugs him forward until they’re flush together. Yuri bites back squeak at the manhandling. His heart is beating out of his chest with excitement as Otabek spreads his hands over his thighs and leans in to mouth at the scent gland behind his ear.

“It was nothing, Yuri,” Otabek promises, his voice a pleasant rumble against Yuri’s ear. “It wasn’t anything like what we have. Nothing ever could be.”

Yuri preens under the attention and Otabek’s words. He lays his arms over Otabek’s shoulders and nuzzles his nose against his stubbled cheek. 

“Sweet talker.”

“Never.”

Yuri kisses him until Otabek breaks it with a quiet groan. “We’re really gonna be late if we don’t stop.”

Yuri hums for a moment, like he’s considering it. “I’m too sore, anyway.” Otabek’s eyebrows draw together but Yuri cuts him off before he can even begin. “I’m fine. Now move so I can do my hair.”

Otabek steps back to let Yuri hop off the counter; he combs his fingers through Yuri’s hair a few times. “You want me to braid it?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Otabek plaits his hair with the ease of a well-learned older brother. Yuri watches the double French braids take shape on his head, body humming with satisfaction. He would never admit it out loud, but Otabek taking care of small things like this for him, makes some instinctual part of him practically glow with happiness. 

 

\--

 

The atmosphere of this club isn’t any different from the ones they went to over the summer in St. Petersburg. It’s dark and lively with pretty people dancing and laughing and drinking. Yuri feels the bass in his spine the moment they’re ushered through the front door, Otabek bumping fists with the bouncer as they pass the line outside. 

He wants to dance. He wants Otabek to get him a drink and the two of them find some darker corner and grind together. He tightens his hand around Otabek’s and lets himself be lead, squeezing through groups of people until they’re at the main bar. Otabek guides Yuri to stand in front of him, caging him between his arms, and Yuri tries not to feel smug about it. People are already staring at Otabek; Yuri takes the time Otabek spends speaking to one of the bartenders that he obviously knows to stare at him too.

He looks good. Really good. Beautiful, even. Yuri presses himself against his chest and lifts a hand to palm his cheek. Otabek brings one hand away from the bar to wrap around his waist, holding him there. Fingers press into his belly and it sparks something warm inside of him. Yuri feels powerful; it’s the only way to describe it. 

Otabek finishes his conversation by introducing Yuri, who lifts his chin in acknowledgement at the bartender who smiles in turn. There’s no extension of hands, which Yuri thinks vaguely must have to do with scenting and alpha hierarchy or something. He doesn’t care too much.

The bartender completes some complicated handshake with Otabek and hands them each a bottle of water. Otabek leans down to kiss him, slow and easy.

Yuri feels weirdly aroused, even though they’d fucked only a few hours ago. He scratches his nails along the base of Otabek’s mohawk, twisting his fingers in the longer hair at the back of his neck.

“I like this more than I thought I would,” Yuri tells him. 

Otabek smiles at him, soft and easy, giving him another, quick peck on the lips. “Good. I like this too,” he says, flicking the tied off end of one of Yuri’s braids. 

“You should, I look good.”

Otabek drops the hand on his belly to pinch his ass. Yuri jolts and smacks his arm, fighting the grin on his face and failing. 

“Come on,” Otabek half-shouts over the music as he takes his hand. “I have to get ready.” 

How a person gets ready for a DJ set, Yuri doesn’t know. He just follows along again as Otabek leads him along the outskirts of the dance floor until they reach a door with another security guard in front of it. The man is already holding out his hand to Otabek as he approaches. Yuri couldn’t understand a word they’re saying to one another, even if he could hear it over the throbbing pulse of the music, so he just lets his gaze wander. 

There is nothing but gorgeous people and flashing lights as far as he can see. And one of those people is making his way toward them. 

He’s big, really big, tall and muscled with tan skin and black eyes, messy hair that looks like he just rolled out of bed but probably took time to construct in a mirror. Everything about his confident gait screams _alpha_ , and everything about his scent, when he gets close enough, seems to agree. 

Yuri presses against Otabek’s side and squeezes his hand. The other alpha continues his approach, his eyes trained on Yuri with no hint of a smile. 

“Beka,” Yuri says, tugging sharply at Otabek’s arm.

Otabek tears his gaze away from the security guard to look at Yuri and then immediately to the approaching alpha. Yuri doesn’t know what he expects but the other alpha reaching out to playfully smack Otabek on the cheek isn’t it. His stoic face cracks into a lazy smile as he glances between the two of them.

“No time for me unless you’re showing off, huh?”

It’s spoken in Russian, clearly meant for him to hear as well. Yuri realizes with a jolt that this is Maxim. 

He clenches his fingers around Otabek’s and lifts his chin. Yuri is helplessly smaller than this new alpha but he does his best to make himself seem bigger. It’s a fruitless effort because Maxim’s smile is placating, like one would use when entertaining a child. 

Yuri hates him even more than he did before.

“Why else would I want to see your ugly mug?” Otabek asks, making Maxim grin. “Let’s head back,” he says, tugging Yuri toward the door the security guard is now holding open. “It’s quieter.”

Yuri allows himself to be lead, guided through the door first with Otabek’s hand at the small of his back; he reclaims it the moment they’re through. The omega side of him absolutely hates having this strange alpha at his back. He wants to look over his shoulder, keep an eye on him, make sure he knows where he’s at. Yuri focuses on retaining his scent, keeping it muted and dull; Otabek acknowledges the change by pulling him closer, and making himself smell warmer.

Yuri appreciates the effort, but he’s still wildly uncomfortable.

A woman with short, curly black hair and bright red lips stops them along the way and Otabek hands over the bag, containing his laptop, he’s been carrying around. They have a brief exchange, of which Yuri understands about four words, before she smiles at them all in turn and then hustles off.

The room Otabek leads them into is something like a green room, although less ostentatious than the ones he’s seen in moves and on television shows. There are two couches and a slew of mismatched chairs, local band posters strewn about haphazardly on the walls with electrical tape, and a battered wooden coffee table that Maxim immediately kicks his booted feet up on after sitting down.

It smells like stale smoke and spilled beer and it’s so awkwardly quiet that Yuri immediately misses the pounding music on the other side of the wall. Otabek sits on the couch across from Maxim and Yuri sits beside him, feeling that heavy, assessing gaze on him. 

“Yuri, this is Maxim.” Yuri lifts his chin but keeps his mouth shut. “Maxim, Yuri.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Maxim says, sticking a cigarette between his lips and lighting it. Yuri feels the immediate pang of jealous want in the back of his throat; he fists his hands on his thighs.

“Same here.”

Yuri had never imagined this feeling quite so awkward. He’s never met any of Otabek’s friends on his previous trips to Almaty. They’ve always spent their time locked away together, rarely venturing out. But, as much as he can’t entirely quash the jealousy he feels toward Maxim, he wants Otabek’s best friend to like him. And, everything aside, he doesn’t seem awful, at first glance.

He couldn’t make Otabek’s mother like him but he can make Maxim.

Yuri takes a breath and tries to relax, settling his hand over top the one that Otabek puts on his thigh.

“Thank you for speaking Russian,” he says, surprising himself by speaking.

Maxim blows smoke away from the two of them. “It’s no problem. You speak Kazakh?”

“Not yet. I should learn, probably.”

“I don’t mind,” Otabek tells him, thumb brushing over the inseam of his jeans. Yuri squeezes his wrist.

“Your mother does.”

Maxim pauses with his cigarette between his lips but doesn’t inhale. Before either him or Otabek can speak, there’s a quick knock and then the door’s being pushed open. 

A woman with long, neon green hair sticks her head in and looks around, shooting off something that Yuri has no hope of understanding. He’s never actually thought about learning Kazakh before now, but he’s rapidly starting to think that he should. Otabek has always spoken easy, fluent Russian with him, so the thought has simply never occurred. Yuri develops an instant resolve to learn.

“I’ll be right back,” Otabek says, squeezing his thigh and standing.

“What? Why?” Yuri’s heart starts to beat a little faster at the thought of being left alone with Maxim.

“I don’t know, something with my laptop.”

“ _Beka_ ,” Yuri practically hisses, gripping onto his hand.

Otabek kisses him quickly on the mouth. “Right back,” he assures, “okay?”

Yuri stares at him a moment before he sighs and lets go of Otabek, folding his arms against his chest and sinking back into the couch with a huff. “Fine.”

Otabek squeezes his knee as he passes, already speaking to the green-haired girl on his way out of the room. 

When the door closes behind them, Yuri feels more intensely awkward than he ever has in his life. He doesn’t know where to look or what to say, if anything. He hasn’t been alone with another alpha, aside from Viktor, in longer than he can remember. He’s never felt comfortable with it, since he presented; he doesn’t trust them and he doesn’t want to. 

But Yuri reminds himself of his resolve to get to know Maxim for Otabek’s sake. Nails bite into the palms of his hands as he shifts, grappling for something to say.

Maxim leans forward to stub out the remnants of his cigarette directly onto the coffee table’s surface. It’s an ugly looking thing, short and battered, carved into and drawn on—Yuri can see three different sharpie dicks just from where he’s sitting—but the move still makes his face scrunch in distaste.

Maxim laughs, deep and quiet, as he sets a new cigarette between his lips.

“You’re cute when you do that,” he says around the filter. 

Yuri’s eyes widen in surprise as Maxim lights his cigarette with an engraved, silver lighter, the heavy, expensive kind that Yuri has always kind of wanted to own. He blinks, at a loss for words.

Maxim laughs again, exhaling smoke and flicking his lighter shut. 

“I’m not flirting with you,” he says easily, gesturing with his free hand to the bridge of his nose. “Just does some little scrunchy thing. Reminds me of my sister.”

“That’s a weird thing to tell someone,” Yuri blurts, half-defensive. He has to tuck his hands deeper under his arms to keep from reaching up to rub his nose.

“Yeah, sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry, but it’s not mean. He sounds as casual as he looks, sitting back in the plush, old armchair like it’s a throne made just for him. “So, you met Mama Altin, did you?” He blows smoke off to the side. “Bit of a bitch, huh?”

Instantly, Yuri feels the ice between them shatter. 

“The worst.”

Maxim nods, flicking ash onto the tabletop. “Why’d she decide she didn’t like you?”

“Who the fuck knows. Too Russian, too poor, weak family line, take your pick.”

Maxim snorts. “I was always the bad influence, in her eyes.”

“Why was that?”

“There’s this legit old arcade Otabek used to like to go to,” Maxim says, already huffing a laugh at his own memory, “he skipped school two days in a row to play some old-ass game he’d gotten addicted to. When he got caught he blamed me and I took the fall for him.”

A surprised laugh breaks free from his mouth before Yuri can stop it. “Why’d he pin that on you?”

“Because he was like twelve and stupid. And also scared of his mother. She thought I was turning Beks into a hooligan after that. Had to fight like hell to hang out with him.” 

Maxim stubs his cigarette out beside the last one; Yuri watches him light a third. Before he can take a drag off of it, though, Yuri leans over the coffee table and plucks it from between his fingers. Maxim watches him with a lazy smile on his face.

“You don’t have anything to worry about with him, you know,” Maxim tells him after a moment, fishing another cigarette out of the half-empty pack.

Yuri considers him for a moment. He’s big and objectively good looking, personable and he’s known Otabek ever since they were children. By all rights, even despite his alpha status, Yuri thinks he should feel threatened by Maxim. He realizes fully, in that moment, that he’s not. 

Yuri exhales smoke out his nose and crosses one leg over the other. 

“You don’t worry me, old man.”

Maxim laughs just as Otabek steps back into the room.

 

\--

 

Seeing Otabek DJ up close—without having to hunt him down, sneak into a club and practically crawl over a soundboard to do it—is pretty amazing. His face is schooled into something serious, absolutely in the zone, concentrating fully on what he’s doing, lost to it. He looks incredible, lifting the headphones around his neck to his ear as he switches something up on his laptop. 

Everything about his posture and the ease of what he’s doing and how he’s doing it screams that he’s in his element. It’s something Yuri never considered seeing on Otabek outside of the ice. It’s like he’s two different people with two wild passions rolled up into one.

He looks hot. 

Yuri can’t control the warm arousal that starts to bleed into his scent. He doesn’t even realize it’s happening at first. He’s been standing side-stage with Maxim and several other people, all holding drinks and dancing around, ever since Otabek went on. He still wants to dance but he doesn’t want to do it alone and he refuses to do it with Maxim, so they’re watching Otabek. And it’s nice, until someone Yuri doesn’t know tries to press against his back.

A foreign voice purrs something in his ear.

Yuri goes rigid but before he can even build up the anger to shove the guy off, Maxim has put an arm across his chest and sent him stumbling back several paces.

“No one,” Maxim says in that deep, booming voice, clearly audible even over the music.

Yuri turns abruptly back to face Otabek, his face red and embarrassment making his cheeks heat. He folds his arms against his chest and berates himself for not controlling his scent better.

It takes Yuri a moment to ask, “What did he say?”

“He asked who left you here alone.”

Disgust curls bitterly on the back of his tongue. He keeps watching Otabek, but when he sees that Maxim hasn’t looked away from him in his peripheral vision, he snaps, “I could have handled that.”

“I know,” Maxim agrees. He sounds like he means it, so Yuri lets it slide. “I could teach you to say ‘fuck off’, if you want.”

Yuri perks up immediately at that, looking at Maxim with the beginnings of a huge grin spreading over his face. 

 

\--

 

Almaty Arena is gorgeous. Yuri has skated in state of the art arenas in different countries all over the world, but this is something else. He had no idea the arena that Otabek calls his home ice would be so astoundingly beautiful.

Everything is new and polished, blue and yellow, shiny and perfect. Yuri has to fight to keep his jaw from dropping at every turn they take. 

It’s far from empty, scattered groups of three or four people moving all over the place. More than once a lone person has gone running past them, dressed to skate. People in suits appear every so often as well, chatting about something or other that Yuri wouldn’t understand anyway so he doesn’t try.

Out in the actual arena itself is beautiful. The ceilings are incredibly high, the rows of blue and yellow seats seem to go on forever, stretching up and up above the ice. That perfect chill hits Yuri’s skin where the sleeves of his hoodie are rolled up, giving him the best kind of goosebumps. Otabek lets him look in silence, but Yuri can see the small, proud smile on his face, when he looks back at him. 

“Hey, slackers.”

Yuri whips his head around to where Maxim is sitting on one of the benches, finishing lacing up a pair of skates.

“You skate?” Yuri blurts out without thinking, surprised.

Otabek laughs behind him, coming around to sit on the bench beside him.

“No toe pick on these, little tiger,” Maxim says, standing up. The cuffs of his jeans are tucked down into a pair of hockey skates and Yuri scowls up at him. He’s stupidly tall with the addition of the blades on his feet.

“Don’t call me that.”

Yuri plunks himself down beside Otabek and starts shoving a foot into one of his skates.

“Maxim plays hockey,” Otabek says, tugging on his laces. “He has since we were kids.”

“Defense,” Maxim butts in, leaning back against the boards with a lazy grin on his face. “Tried to get Beks to play with me but he was too much of a wuss.”

Otabek looks up with a huff, tossing his limp hair back off of his forehead. “I’m short. I would have gotten destroyed.” 

“We could have been d-partners.” Maxim sighs wistfully. “Now you’re winning medals for the motherland, making us all proud.” He roughs up Otabek’s hair, earning himself a smack to the hand in the process.

Otabek stands, still small compared to Maxim’s imposing frame. “Remind me again why you’re here.”

“Because you missed me.”

Maxim tosses his skate guards toward the bench and makes his way out onto the ice with heavy, clomping footsteps. Yuri watches him go, watches the length of his stride and the way he takes to the ice. He steps up to the glass—the arena still set up for hockey games—and watches Maxim’s first long, powerful strides across the ice. He cuts an imposing figure, huge and still graceful.

Otabek tugs at one of his messy braids.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Ready to skate circles around this fool,” Yuri says, heading for the open door. Otabek follows him, lazy smile still in place.

It’s been a long time since they’ve skated together. Yuri wasn’t planning on Maxim being present but he’s not opposed, either. He knows that Otabek hasn’t seen a lot of his friends, especially not since they’ve gotten back to training so hard again, so he doesn’t begrudge him the opportunity to hang out with them. Yuri’s just glad that Otabek wants him along as well, that Otabek wants him and Maxim to be friends.

Yuri loses time out on the ice. He and Otabek try to outdo each other with increasingly difficult jumps. Maxim watches, clapping politely and offering random, shouted numbers, like he’s giving them scores. None of them make any sense, but neither do official judging scores, so Yuri accepts each with a flourishing bow.

“Do you two couples skate?” Maxim asks with a grin.

Otabek does a loop around the two of them and then grinds to a stop, spraying Maxim’s legs with snow.

“You’ll regret that later,” Maxim promises. “I don’t know what you’re so defensive about; the whole country saw you deep-throating his fingers on TV.”

Yuri feels his face flush and his eyes widen. Maxim laughs but it’s not unkind; Otabek immediately starts trying to stick his fingers in Maxim’s open mouth. He splutters and tries to push Otabek away, but Otabek is persistent, following him as he backs up toward the boards. Maxim capitalizes on the support the glass gives him and reaches over Otabek to grab the back of his shirt and tug it up over his head. He takes Otabek to the ice in the blink of an eye and then throws his hands up, crowing his victory.

“If this was a hockey fight, I’d have kicked your ass.” 

“Defend my honor, Yuri,” Otabek calls, sitting up and pulling his shirt back down.

“What kind of alpha are you—“ his voice cuts off when Yuri leaps onto him from the side; it’s not enough to knock him to the ice, but he has to catch himself on his forearm to keep from going over entirely. “Ow, you little shit! My elbow!” He’s laughing even as he tries to shove Yuri off. 

Otabek catches Yuri when Maxim finally dumps him off. “Good job, Yura,” he praises.

“How are the two of you Olympic-level athletes?” Maxim huffs, attempting to brush the snow off of his shirtsleeves. 

Yuri’s ass is already freezing from sitting on the ice but he lets Otabek wrap his arms around him and hug him to his chest anyway. He must smell as content as he looks before Otabek buries his nose behind his ear and inhales, making Yuri shiver, arms prickling again with painful goosebumps. 

“Save it for the bedroom, you two,” Maxim says.

Yuri turns his head for a kiss and Otabek readily gives it to him. Maxim gags once but Yuri imagines that it’s a fond sound.

 

\--

 

There’s a pleasant ache in Yuri’s legs, the kind that never fully goes away, even after a lifetime of skating, when he lets it lapse for more than a week. He really can’t afford to take time off right now, but with his heat and meeting Otabek’s mother, he’s had a lot to deal with. The break is warranted, and he makes up for it by putting himself through his paces after he, Otabek and Maxim finish fooling around.

His thighs burn all through his cool down stretches and he doesn’t fight the serene smile it gives him. Holding onto his toes, as he stretches over his leg, watching Otabek not quite reach his own, he tells himself that this is the year that he and Otabek compete for gold on the GPF stage. And he’s going to win again.

Otabek holds onto two of his fingers as they head out; Yuri is still looking around too much to fully avoid walking himself into something. He lets himself be led, listening but not really hearing Otabek and Maxim talk. Aside from it being in his hometown, the arena is a work of art and Yuri can understand why Otabek would be anxious to make it his home rink again.

“Oh, Yuri, hey.”

Yuri looks at Maxim. “What?”

Maxim is grinning at Otabek, getting smarmier by the second. 

“No,” Otabek says, sounding pained. “Maxim, don’t—“

“Yuri, follow me.”

Otabek’s gaze hits him immediately, his dark eyes wide. “Yuri—“

“You wanna see something embarrassing?” Maxim interrupts, smacking at where Otabek’s hand holds onto him; he doesn’t actually touch Yuri.

Yuri looks down at their hands, at Otabek’s pleading face, and then to Maxim. He shakes off Otabek’s hand with a grin. “Show me.”

Otabek’s agonized groan follows them as Maxim leads him quickly down a split in the concourse. It should feel weird to follow Maxim, to trust this guy he barely knows, even if it is for something so inconsequential, but it feels more important than that. Yuri knows he doesn’t trust easily and he knows he has reasons not to, but it makes something inside his chest feel lighter, knowing that he’s capable of it.

Knowing that Otabek is behind him helps, too. Knowing that he can trust Otabek with everything makes him feel braver.

Maxim draws to a stop and turns to him. “You ready?”

“Always.”

Maxim takes a few more steps and holds his arm out, presenting a literal floor-to-ceiling mural of Otabek, in side profile, wearing his gold from the NHK Trophy, draped in a Kazakh flag, billowing out behind him like a superhero cape. 

Yuri gapes. 

“I hate you,” Otabek tells Maxim, his voice quiet and serious.

“I’ve been your friend since you were three, embarrassing you is my right.”

Yuri turns back to Otabek, eyes wider than they’ve ever been. “This is _so cool_. Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he gushes.

Maxim snorts and Otabek elbows him before stepping up to stand beside Yuri. He’s flushing, hand on the back of his neck; he looks anywhere but at the mural. “It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s _cool_. You look like a superhero.”

Maxim laughs. “Hero of Kazakhstan.”

Otabek lifts a middle finger at him without looking. “It’s not my favorite thing.”

“It’s mine.” He pats himself down for his phone.

“Yuri, no. Please.”

“Yes, please.” Yuri passes his phone into Maxim’s outstretched hand. There’s a grin on his face that speaks to how much he’s loving causing Otabek this much embarrassment.

But Yuri loves this. How could he not? 

“Just you?” Maxim asks. 

Yuri has him take a series of pictures wherein he’s pointing at the mural or presenting it proudly with both hands. Then he ropes Otabek into it, climbing onto his back and holding up both arms, flexing. He hopes that Otabek is smiling or else he’s never going to be able to use these pictures. 

When he’s back on his feet and scrolling through the photos that Maxim took, he’s pleased to find that Otabek looks fondly annoyed instead of angry or constipated. He calls it a win.

 

\--

 

Yuri lies on Otabek’s bed with his feet up on the wall above the pillows while Otabek cooks them dinner. He’s settled on one of the pictures where he’s perched on Otabek’s back, for his instagram, and now he’s flipping back and forth between two filters, trying to determine which he likes best.

“I can post this, right?” he asks, finally settling on one.

Otabek huffs. “If you must.”

“I won’t, if you really don’t want me to,” Yuri tells him, setting his phone down on his chest to scratch Flura as she meanders over toward him. 

“I don’t mind, Yura.”

Flura purrs, licking at his hands as he rubs at her neck. He misses his own cat, but he tries not to dwell on it. Yuri picks up his phone again and captions the picture, _The legend himself_ , before posting it.

Yuri sits upright as Otabek comes to kneel on the bed with a bowl in each hand. Yuri takes one from him, the warmth immediately seeping into his hands as he settles it between his legs. Otabek has made them a hearty mix of thick-cut vegetables and dumplings and it smells like heaven. 

Yuri stirs his around with the fork in hand, the steam curling around his fingers as he does. 

Otabek settles back against the wall, pillows piled up behind him, feet crossed at the ankles. Yuri takes a bite and alternates between looking down at his bowl and up at Otabek. 

“Too spicy?” Otabek asks when Yuri says nothing. He pokes at a chunk of potato with his fork.

“No.”

He can feel Otabek watching him as he moves his food around without eating it. 

“What’s wrong?” Otabek asks, pushing himself into a less relaxed position, with his legs crossed, mirroring Yuri. 

Yuri sighs. There’s no point in denying something’s on his mind; Otabek can probably smell the melancholy in his scent. Yuri’s shit at hiding things from him. He sets his bowl aside and looks at his feet. There’s a fresh bruise forming on the side of his foot from this afternoon and he prods at it.

“Stop that,” Otabek chides gently, reaching out to brush his hand away.

Yuri wraps his hands around his ankles and takes a deep breath, steeling himself.

“I want to talk about where we’re going to live.”

Otabek stares at him for a moment. “Right. Okay.” He puts his bowl on the bedside table. Yuri can already tell that he’s not going to like whatever Otabek is going to say because his scent is about as anxious as Yuri has ever smelled it.

“Fuck, Beka, come on,” he groans, pulling at his own hair. “You really want to keep doing this?”

“I _don’t_ , Yuri,” Otabek defends. “I miss you constantly. I feel like this bond is going to rip me apart when you’re gone,” he says, rubbing absently at his chest, to the left of his sternum, right where Yuri’s throbs too.

“Then move back with me.”

Otabek looks away, his expression pained. “I can’t yet, Yuri.”

Yuri lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. He can feel the pulse of pain in their bond and he knows that Otabek is hurting too, even though they’re so close to one another. There’s a burn in his eyes but Yuri blinks it away. 

“I can’t move here,” Yuri says. Even though he wants to, Yuri knows his Grandpa would never allow it. He’d let Yuri move to St. Petersburg because it meant living with Lilia and working with Yakov so closely. And Viktor was so close to watch over him. It was for his career; there’s no chance his Grandpa would permit him to move to another country to be with Otabek.

He turns his face into his bicep and closes his eyes. 

A hand curls around his calf. “Yuri.”

“I know.”

He understands, as much as he doesn’t want to. Otabek isn’t much older than him and he’s just managed to move himself home to Almaty. He’s back with his sister and his mother and his friends and Yuri doesn’t begrudge him any of it. It hurts but he gets it.

He takes a shaky breath. “I just don’t want to do this anymore. I hate it.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” Otabek says quietly, thumb brushing over the prominent bones in Yuri’s ankle. “I can’t pick everything up again, yet. I’d have to find a coach in Russia—“

“Yakov would coach you.” Otabek sighs. “I’m not trying to push you, I’m just saying.”

“I think your coach has his hands full already.”

Yuri looks at him, his face still half buried in his arm. “Viktor won’t skate much longer.” Otabek’s eyebrows bunch in confusion. “When he retires again…” Yuri trails off because the idea of actually asking Viktor to coach him is a bitter one. He’d already been promised Viktor’s help in the past and had it yanked away from him because of Katsuki. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t still want Viktor to coach him. 

Otabek moves, stretching himself out beside Yuri, curling an arm around his head, and Yuri presses against him. 

“So you’ll train under Viktor and I’ll train under Yakov,” Otabek says. “That’s what you’re thinking?” Yuri nods, grateful that he doesn’t have to say it out loud. The silence stretches for a long time. It’s not uncomfortable; rather, it’s soothing. Yuri starts to relax, his breathing slowing down again, even if his mind is still racing. “All right,” Otabek finally agrees.

Yuri lifts his head to look at him. “All right?” he repeats.

Otabek nods once. “When Viktor retires, and takes you on, I’ll come train under Yakov, if he’ll have me. “

The sting in Yuri’s eyes comes back, full force. He seizes Otabek with his arms and his legs, tangling them together and burying his face in his neck. Otabek smells warm and familiar, _safe_ and all things good. Yuri clings, keeping his eyes clenched shut against the onslaught he knows is coming.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Otabek holds him just as tightly, fingers caught up in his hair, rubbing at his scalp. “You don’t have to thank me. I want to, Yuri. This isn’t easy for me, either.”

“I know.”

Otabek kisses the top of his head and strokes his back with his other hand.

“That old man can’t skate forever,” Yuri mumbles, and Otabek snorts. “Seriously, he’s almost thirty. Give it two years, tops.”

Otabek shakes his head. “Don’t think about it like that. Makes it seem like we’re wishing he retires earlier.”

Yuri doesn’t say what he’s thinking but he knows that Otabek senses it anyway because he gives Yuri a half-hearted swat on the ass. Yuri huffs a laugh against his throat.

“I can’t wait to live with you,” Yuri tells him quietly.

“Me too, Yura.” Then, “Your food is getting cold.”

Yuri snorts and bites down on his neck. “Ruin the moment, Beka.” But Yuri sits up again, running his fingers through Otabek’s hair, tugging gently at the thick tufts of it, still limp and soft from air-drying, over his forehead. Otabek closes his eyes and lies still until Yuri’s hand falls away. 

“You eat too,” Yuri says, nudging him with his foot. 

Otabek complies, grabbing his bowl and sitting closer, letting one of his legs rest over Yuri’s as they eat. Yuri’s phone continues to light up with notifications. He reads his favorite comments out loud to Otabek.

**+guanghongji+: so strong, so brave, what a man**  
**Jjleroy!15:Tell Altin he’s a nerd!!!**  
**phichit+chu: AMAZING! I WANT A PICTURE WITH THIS THING**

If he could down vote Mila’s _He’s even prettier this way_ , he would. But he ignores that one and continues on. 

Otabek’s leg is a warm, heavy weight over his, his foot tapping steadily against Yuri’s thigh. It’s comfortable and easy and Yuri loves every single moment of it, even with the pressure of the clock counting down on their time together.

“What do you think you’ll do when you retire?” Otabek asks, drawing his gaze up. 

Yuri’s hair slides over his ear and into his face; he doesn’t push it back right away, instead looking at Otabek.

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it.” Yuri pauses, poking his fork around his bowl again. “Coach, probably. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Otabek sets his empty bowl aside on the bed, and Flura immediately bounds over to stick her face into it. “I get an inheritance when I get married,” Otabek tells him, stroking a hand down the cat’s back. “Or mated, in this case. My father set it up for me and Jasna right before he died.” Yuri can hear the tightness in his voice; he sets his phone down on the bed. Otabek clears his throat and goes on. “I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with it for a while.”

“What are you thinking?” Yuri prods gently.

Otabek scratches Flura’s chin, making her purr loudly in the silence. “I think I want to open a bike shop. Do repairs, upgrades, things like that.”

The admission makes Yuri sit upright. “Seriously? You don’t want to coach?” Otabek shakes his head. “But you coach _now_.”

“I know,” Otabek says, leaning back on his hands and looking at him. He’s so gorgeous and soft, it makes Yuri’s heart ache. “I love coaching but it’s something I’ve just always done to pad my savings.” The savings that he practically emptied to spend the summer in St. Petersburg. Yuri looks away guiltily. “Don’t,” Otabek says, nudging him with his foot, “I wanted to spend the summer with you and I don’t regret any of it.”

“Still,” Yuri grumbles, scratching at the hair behind his ear, touching his scent gland with his middle finger. “Are you sure—“

“I’ve been sure about this since I was a kid, Yuri,” Otabek says, his voice quiet.

Yuri’s mouth twists to the side as he tucks his hair behind his ear again. “It seems like such a waste. You’re so talented.”

“If I can still skate with you, I’ll be happy,” Otabek tells him, like it’s the easiest, most natural thing in the world.

Yuri’s heart pounds a little harder. He doesn’t know how Otabek always manages to do that to him; he’s blunt and almost unnerving in his honesty, but it thrills Yuri how open he is. How much he cares about Yuri and how willingly he acts on it. Sometimes Yuri hardly feels deserving of it even though he does his absolute best to reciprocate.

Yuri rubs his face with both hands.

“Yurochka,” Otabek says, leaning forward to take hold of his wrists and lower his hands. “Don’t worry about it, all right? It’s far off, right now.”

“I just want you to be happy, with me.”

Otabek scoots closer again and cups his cheek, drawing him into a kiss that’s equal parts slow and deep. “Trust me when I say that I’m happy.”

Yuri leans in until their foreheads bump together and rests there, holding onto Otabek’s forearms. He does trust Otabek, without question, so he trusts him with this too. He closes his eyes and breathes in Otabek’s calming scent and pushes aside thoughts of the future for this moment, here and now.

**Author's Note:**

> I love and appreciate comments and kudos so much. Let me know what you think ❤


End file.
